The Big Book of Okikagu
by Krabbit
Summary: This is a compiliation of Okikagu one-shots and short stories set in various AU, Canon/Future Canon and fairy tale twists. Requests, suggestions, ideas for potential future chapters are all welcome, so R&R ;)The first chapter is about a sadistic prince with a particular taste, a feisty princess(?), and a pea(?) under tens of mattresses...
1. China-Hime and the Sadist(s)' Pea?

**Heellloooo everyone, KRabbit here! Phew. I've finally stepped into the world of Okikagu... and thanks to Xliaf27 for inspiring me to join and write this first Okikagu fanfic... which is really different from my other more serious story. I did mention I was going to write an Okikagu fic after I finished my other story, but I just had to write this when I got a good idea... hehe.**

 **I tried to be a little bit more carefree about how I narrated it and all... but it was my first attempt at a light-hearted, humorous mood, so... meh. /o/ Dunno how it turned out.**

 **So. This story is, as I've said in the summary, a collection of Okikagu, whether they're one-shots or short stories (which shouldn't take more than at least three chapters... I think). If you want me to write something in particular or have suggestions, then feel free to review or PM me! But please be specific about your request...**

 **Disclaimers: Gintama does not belong to me**

 **Well then, enjoy this super long one-shot! And leave reviews and comments!^^**

* * *

Chapter 1: China-Hime and the Sadist(s)'... Pea?

Once upon a time, there lived a very sadistic prince in a far, far away kingdom ruled by his beloved sister and her mayora husband. When the queen had decided that the prince was old enough to—

 _*Enter Okita, snatches away mic from author.*_

Eh-?! An-Ano, that's-

"This is the story of how I, Okita Sougo, prince of the Kingdom of Edo and of the planet of sadists, sword prodigy, and the soon to be future Vice-Commander of the Shinsengumi, got Baka-China to be my everlasting slav-,"

 _*Enter Kagura, grabs Okita by the neck and walks off, muttering about how she's going to kill him.*_

… Let's hope our heroine doesn't really kill off the main character in the first chapter.

 _*clears throat*_ And so, the story begins with Queen Mitsuba, who had just been visited by the palace's doctor…

* * *

The doctor slowly took of his stethoscope and nodded, affirming her suspicions.

Okita Mitsuba exhaled, and pushed the mint grin kimono sleeve back over her arm, a sad smile forming on her lovely face. It had been a while since she had felt this sick, so her husband had encouraged her to call on the royal doctor within the palace to check up on her condition.

"It can't be helped. Thank you, doctor." She said, and escorted the doctor to the door from her wheelchair with a gentle smile. Her head was spinning with this new information, and the first thing that came up on her mind was the thought of her family, and how they would take to it.

The older man bowed and said, "If your conditions or symptoms change at all, Your Majesty, then do not hesitate to call on me. It is for your own safety that-,"

"Mitsuba!" the doctor was interrupted in the middle of his warning when a black haired man came into the room through the door the latter was about to exit from; his black uniform disheveled and sweat running down his face from running all the way to the room.

"Toshiro-san, you're back early – I—," she started when her husband grabbed her shoulders and looked worriedly into her face. Behind them, the doctor lightly stepped outside and closed the door, giving them the room they would need.

"I heard the news and came. What is it? Is it… is it the-,"

She put a hand to his face and said, "I'm afraid that it's time, Toshiro-san."

He paled visibly and slumped forward, putting his forehead to hers with a sigh. "Sougo is _not_ going to be happy with this, Mitsuba."

She gave out a small laugh this time at the mentioning of her younger brother, putting her hands on the sides of his face. "I know. But we both knew that this was going to happen, sooner or later. Now all that's left to do is tell him about it…"

* * *

Okita Sougo, the younger brother of Queen Mitsuba and the heir to the throne…

"Get lost. You're an eyesore." He said lazily, waving a hand and looking extremely uninterested as the rather pretty girl burst into tears and ran out of the room, shortly followed by her attendants who shot him dirty looks.

… and a hard-core sadist who was currently trying to find a proper masochis— _ahem_ – princess who would become his wife. Of course, it wasn't that he wanted to do any of this purely of his own voluntary will. He didn't think that anyone would spend hours and hours rifling through and looking over the proper princess candidates who all looked, talked and acted in the same block definition of what royalty was supposed to be like.

The only fun he got out of it was making a good majority of them cry and send them packing. Well, it was either that, or they would end up becoming so tamed that they would end up on the ground and licking his feet, and he didn't think that it would be something he wanted his sister to hear about.

When he came back home to the castle after he had gone on a trip spanning of about three years to train, he was faced with a situation that he couldn't do anything about.

The very morning he came back, he had run to his older sister, who he hadn't seen for years and only heard news of every so often. He didn't care for seeing his brother in law, Hijikata, though, and instead given him the finger behind Mitsuba's back first thing, then played with the Tabasco sauce during their meal time together in the dining hall. He reveled in the situation when Hijikata jumped from his seat and ran to the bathroom, his face crimson red, water streaming from his mouth, nose and eyes and giving Okita a death glare. Mitsuba _had_ been entertained by that, though she didn't know that her younger brother had done it.

He had been gone for three years, and it felt as if he was already replaced by the good for nothing who had first made his sister cry when he'd disappeared on his own for five years. So without a doubt, Okita had been rather surprised to hear that the two had gotten married while he was gone, which was a little after Hijikata had come back to the palace to serve as the Vice-commander of the Shinsengumi, the police force within the kingdom.

He had been very pleased to come back and see his sister, who welcomed him with open arms… and some rather… adverse news that came after three days of his arrival.

"Sou-chan, I have something to tell you…" she began, and Okita looked down at her with a smile. He had wanted some time alone with his sister (without Hijikata in the way), so the two had gone on a walk in the private garden beyond the castle walls, where outsiders were forbidden to go through. He remembered the place very fondly, since he played there with his sister quite often when he was little.

"Yes, Aneue?"

"I think that it's time that you come back to your post as prince. For good this time," her words stopped him in his tracks along the path. The shock must have been clear on his face, because she gave him an apologetic smile and wheeled up to him, taking his hand. "Sou-chan, I don't think I'll be able to continue reigning here as Queen much longer, and you need to be ready to take the throne in my place."

More than the news that he would have to take the royal seat, Okita was more shocked by her speaking as if… she didn't have much time remaining. He'd heard (and mostly ignored) Hijikata when he told Okita about Mitsuba's health while he was gone, and how it deteriorated quickly, her condition getting worse quite recently. But he hadn't believed that it was true. His sister _was_ looking rather paler than he remembered, and her cheeks were a lot sharper from apparent weight loss, but she didn't look sick.

He had then gone to the doctor, who had told him that he had warned her to rest properly and forbid her from working herself, even if it was for the kingdom. So that meant that Okita had to step in and rule in her place as soon as possible.

It also meant…

"I'm sorry that I had to dump this on you, Sou-chan. I'm so sorry."

He returned her hold and forced a smile. "There's nothing for you to apologize for, Aneue. I understand."

The sandy brown haired woman breathed out a relieved sigh and smiled. "Thank you. And, Sou-chan, you do understand the other step you have to take-,"

… that he had to get married as soon as possible.

It was a part of the traditions in the royal family – that when the male or female who was going to take the throne, he or she would have to be married in order to resume the line properly. In Mitsuba's case, their parents had died early on, so the influential figures at the time had taken up matters until she turned sixteen, an age old enough to rule. But because there had been no one to decide her proper husband candidate as she assumed the throne, the debate on her marriage had been put off for a long time.

When she had gotten married to Hijikata, who was technically not of any aristocratic family or of royal blood, it meant that none of her own children would be able to lead on and rule, since only pure-blooded figures could rule within the kingdom. And that left the young prince Okita to be the heir in line.

Okita never cared for the rules or traditions, and didn't bother to uphold them, but it was in his sisters' best interests to follow through with what she thought was right.

And because he loved his sister, he was going through the tear-jerkingly boring process of meeting some random self-proclaimed princess from a far away land and looking to see which one was… suitable for him.

He hadn't been too keen on meeting any of them, but he didn't want to disappoint Mitsuba, so he'd taken up a condition when he agreed. Whoever he married, would have to be a _real_ princess.

He didn't know how Mitsuba took his condition, but when he said 'real princess', he really meant, 'a-woman-who-had-some-royal-blood-in-her-veins-who-was-M-enough-to-match-his-sadistic-habits- (which went unknown to his sister)-but-strong-enough-to-endure-that-behavior-and-interesting-as-hell'. Which meant that, even after scrolling through three piles of documents that told him who was who and from where, and even after he met close to about two hundred 'lovely' ladies and spent time with them, he hadn't found the perfect one.

And it had been going on for approximately four weeks.

And he was slowly nearing the end of his patience to cover up his hostility with sugary fake smiles.

"Too short to be a real princess."

"She looks akin to an animal rolling around in a pig-pen to be a real princess."

"Your style sucks too much to be a real princess."

"What the hell are you, a punk-ass tomboy masquerading as someone like my sister? Get out."

"Oi, livestock, I'm over here. Where are you looking at? If you're not going to be serious about me, then leave already. The door's over there."

"That face of yours is too boring. So you can escort yourself out."

"Are you sure you're a human being? Go and take a look in the mirror."

"You're too thin to handle being my wife. Please leave."

"What are you, a commoner with blueblood clothes?"

Every time he came across a young lady, he either smacked her down with such words while having a beautiful smile on his face or he just straight out told her to leave. Albeit… politely enough.

He groaned, rubbing a hand over his face and glared at the three overseers next to him. Apparently their presence was mandatory when selecting the brides, and there was something more about it being a part of the tradition, but Okita hadn't been paying attention when they introduced themselves to him.

"Oi, Zaki, how many of these so called ladies are left in this place?" he asked, irritated to the man on his left. Yamazaki Sagaru, who was the Shinsengumi's (Hijikata's) informant and investigator (personal spy) was also present, checking to make sure the entire process was going smoothly.

"Er… well, according to this list, there are about ten more aristocrats waiting in the parlor on the fifth floor, and fifteen other princesses waiting in the hall outside, Your Highness-,"

Okita sighed, running his fingers through his sandy brown hair, his brown-red eyes narrowing to annoyed slits. If he could just murder someone right now or have his bazooka at hand, the world would feel a lot less like Hell right now. Better yet, if he could send a particular someone *cough-Hijikata-cough* to that Hell…

"Your Highness?" the attendant's voice drew him from his murderous daydreaming. "This is the next prin-,"

"Yamazaki, if we don't end this in an hour, I'm going to end up castrating you and feed your *bleep* to the dogs." He said as the next lady came into the room, and Yamazaki stiffened, sweat dropping from his face in rivulets. When it came to this young prince, anything could happen, and he had no doubt as to him being extremely serious about what he said.

"H-hai, sir!" after a moment, he also added, "Okita-taichou's still treating me like this despite me moving up the social ladder… go figure."

"I'm going to ignore that, Zaki, so get to it already." Sighing again as the other man paled in fear, Okita looked at the big window and beyond it, at the cloudy gray sky and muttered, "It looks like a big storm's coming this way."

* * *

"Sou-chan?" Mitsuba's gentle voice prodded him out of his thoughts. He stopped looking out into the howling, rainy scenery outside which matched his moods and turned to his sister, who was at the door to his room, and without her wheelchair. At around one in the morning.

As for him, he couldn't sleep, so he ended up looking outside the window, dressed in his usual daywear of a white button up shirt and black trousers. For about three hours already since everyone had gone to bed. But to see his sister walk around at this hour was a surprise.

"Aneue? Wait, are you alright to be up and walking around—what about-," he interjected, running to her and leading her to the nearest chair carefully. He turned on the lights immediately, so that his once dark room was lit up and the siblings could see each others' faces properly. She thanked him, which made a smile light up his face.

But the next thing he heard wiped that smile right off. "I heard that you still haven't selected a princess, so I was worried and thought to come and see whether you were doing alright. But as I thought, you were up late again. That habit of yours is still the same, Sou-cha-,"

"Did you hear that from Hijikata-san? What did he say about it? That I was a young boy who's incapable of doing even something that's asked of me?" he couldn't keep the bitterness in his tone from showing up, but Mitsuba took his hand, shaking her head.

"I heard from Yamazaki-san."

"That damn Zaki." He muttered, promising to himself to play with him as a darts board later.

"I know you're trying your best, Sou-chan, and I'm grateful for that, really. But I didn't think that it was going to be easy for you to just choose someone you didn't know for your bride and for political reasons. I want you to choose someone you really do love, and let that relationship make you grow and be happy, not chain you down. I realized that a little too late, perhaps, when I suggested this to you."

He wasn't being scolded, he realized. He watched Mitsuba take a breath, and continue, "I understand that you feel pressured, but it's alright, Sou-chan. You don't have to force yourself to do this in such a short amount of time. Finding someone right for you may take all that time, after all. So you can take all the time you need, while Toshiro-san and I will somehow-,"

She was cut off by the sound of a loud thunderclap that rang out suddenly, echoing throughout the castle. Wait, what? After stopping to hear closer, he found that the loud sound didn't come from the weather's abnormalities, but at a specific place.

 ** _Bang. Bang. Bang_**. It actually sounded more like someone was knocking on the door…

"I wonder who it is at this hour. Sou-chan, won't you go and check in my stead? I'll be right along with Toshiro-san."

Ignoring the throbbing irritation gnawing at his insides whenever his sister tried to include that damn Hijikata in everything, Okita grabbed his black jacket and his katana and replied, "Yes… Aneue."

* * *

When he opened the door, he didn't exactly expect to find what he found.

He had gone straight to the doors of the castle's opening and tugged open the solid wooden walls, and came face to face with a beautiful foreigner.

Correction: he came face to face with a beautiful foreigner who was dripping wet, her lower half practically looking like it was dipped in mud and shivering like a wretched little rabbit that took a wrong turn at the wrong time and came straight into a storm. She looked outright pitiful.

Shoulder-length vermillion hair was sticking to her face and neck, half of it falling from what must have been a very neat hairstyle of hair ornaments. Her pale, unblemished skin was glistening with water from the rain, and she came to about the height short of coming to his collarbones.

She was wearing a long red cheongsam that was coated with mud and grime under a beige colored cape that was clasped around her shoulders, and she held a purple umbrella in her arms, shivering like mad.

But that wasn't what had drawn his attention to a stop. It was those big cerulean blue eyes that had the gleam of someone who was willful and strong. They screamed innocence, and her expression was that of someone who was –

"Leaving the door open but not letting me in is rather sadistic of you, bastard." She chattered, glaring at him. Okita blinked, shaking his head. What the hell had happened to him? Had he really just gone off on a –

The girl interrupted his thoughts again, her voice a little louder and a tad haughtier. "I'm a… a princess, you know. Hurry up and let me in before I rip your head off, slave."

This was getting better and better. He held his ground, smirking down at her. "I don't think that's the right attitude to take to someone who was about to help you. And speaking of princesses, we're not taking in any more of them, so find someplace else to bury yourself in. I'm not interested in any more _princesses."_

Before he could close the door in the girl's face, she kicked out her umbrella and bullets started shooting out from the end. If he hadn't been swift enough to draw his katana, he might have had holes in his face by now. He whistled at the large bullets he'd cut fall to the ground. These kinds of weapons weren't easy to come at hand. Who exactly was this girl?

Looking down from the tip of his katana, Okita stared the girl down, finding her attitude to be rather interesting, despite the awful condition she was in. It meant that she had a pride that refused to break under pressure.

"Who the hell said I was interested in a brat like you?! I'm-,"

"I don't think I want to hear that from a brat, brat." He muttered, and she pointed her umbrella at him.

"I just want shelter from this storm. I was separated from my… from my troupe, and I need someplace to stay until this storm passes." She wheezed out, her annoyed expression shifting into that of pure misery. It was obvious that she didn't like the outside right now and actually did want to get in.

He looked at her for a moment longer, pondering what to do. Then she sneezed, and a long string of snot came from her nose, and her eyes crinkled together as if she was about to cry. And that was that.

Taking out a handkerchief from his jacket pocket, he threw it at her face and opened the door wider.

"Get in before that snot freezes on your nose, China-musume."

"C-China?!"

He enjoyed watching the expression she made when he called her that and looked down at her with an amused, sly grin. "Then what am I supposed to call you? Little piglet?"

"My name is _Kagura_ , you do-S bastard!"

He snorted, but did take note of his new nickname. It must have been short for do-Sadist (extreme sadist). And that was fine. It matched his personality perfectly, anyway. "Fine, then. China it is."

"Sougo, what's going on?"

Okita tsked, turning to find Hijikata standing there, along with Mitsuba, Yamazaki and three other servants, who had apparently barely gotten up from their beds at the queen's order.

"I found this pigl—no, er… um… young lady outside-,"

"What the hell was that pause for?!" she furiously hissed, and he ignored her, continuing, "And she wanted some shelter from the storm."

"Well, you're very welcome to stay, Miss…?" Mitsuba was the first one to come forward, her hands reaching out in a friendly fashion when Okita stopped her with his serious, leader-enforced tone.

"But we also don't know who she is, Aneue. Hijikata-san, Yamazaki, check out if she has anything else on her besides that umbrella. There's a built in machine gun in there, by the way, so I suggest that you be-,"

"Don't touch me-aru!" with that, Yamazaki yelped, clutching his nose and stepping back. The girl waved her umbrella at him, with a fierce look in her eyes. But when she spoke up, her voice was calm, almost pleading for them to trust her. "I'm not anyone suspicious."

"—careful." Okita finished, sighing. "And it doesn't seem as if she needs bullets to hurt someone... Alrighty…" he fished out a pair of handcuffs from his pocket ("Oi, Sougo, are those mine-?!") and stepped closer to her when Mitsuba called out, "Wait, Sou-chan-,"

 _Clink._ But it was already too late. He had cuffed her hands together with the specially made acupuncture cuffs that would tighten around her wrists if she tried to pull away too hard. Well, technically speaking, he had _borrowed_ them from Hijikata, planning to use them to handcuff him to the bedpost first thing in the morning, but he might as well have used them now.

The girl shrieked, "Oi, oi, what the *bleep* are you doing-aru?! These—take these off, they hurt!"

"For a self-proclaimed princess, you use some pretty dirty words. Haven't your parents ever told you not to curse in such an unladylike manner?" after watching her wince as the handcuffs grew tighter around her wrists, Okita added, "Ah, and those cuffs don't come off so easily, so I suggest you don't struggle so much."

"Sou-chan, that's no way to treat a guest." Mitsuba scolded him, a frown marring her face.

He shrugged, giving the girl an evil, satisfied smirk, but turning to his sister with an apologetic angel's smile. "I'm sorry, Aneue, but this girl tried to shoot off my face when I opened the door. Who knows what she might do if she got loose in the castle."

"That was after you tried to slam it in my face, you sadist!"

"And that was after _you_ rudely called me a slave and said you were a princess. As if-,"

"I _am_ one, you do-S bastard, but you're just the one who said you'd had enough of princesses when I only wanted shelter! And why does that matter, anyway?! I'm cold and tired and-," a large growl followed her sentence, stilling everyone in the room. The girl's face went as red as her hair, and Okita stared at the culprit, finding that flushed face to be rather cute—wait, what?

"W-was that… was that a stomach growling?" Hijikata spoke up, and Mitsuba giggled.

"Sou-chan, I understand your concern, but she came to us for help. Please release her, then bring her to the baths while I go and alert the kitchens. A midnight snack doesn't sound too bad, does it?" the older woman turned to Kagura, giving her a small bow, which was returned awkwardly with a badly done curtsy. "Miss, you still haven't told us your name, but I'm Queen Okita Mitsuba, and this is my husband, Hijikata Toshiro, Vice-commander of the Shinsengumi. And this is my brother, Okita Sougo-,"

" _Prince_ Okita Sougo, heir in line and also the captain of the first squad in the Shinsengumi. Not a slave like you said, _China_." That earned him a dirty look, but she looked too tired to pull any more physical stunts.

"I wouldn't have guessed. What kind of a prince opens the door in the middle of the night instead of a proper servant doing it? Are you guys short of hands or something?"

"I was only doing it because-,"

"Sougo, that's enough." Hijikata's larger hand went around and tugged on his shoulder, pulling him back. "And where did you put the key to the cuffs? She's obviously going to have to get them off-,"

"Oh, dear me," Okita drawled, and punched Yamazaki, earning an open-mouthed oomph from the subordinate, then popped a small key into his mouth. The darker haired man swallowed it unconsciously, then turned purple.

Looking up at Okita nervously, he asked, "A-ano… Okita-taichou… what did… what did you just do?"

"And so, I don't have the keys right now, Hijikata-san. If China wants those keys, then she's going to have to wait another day or so-," he stopped, and noticed that she was gone. And so was Mitsuba. But the chatter of laughter and conversation down the hall and mud tracks which told him where to go.

An awful idea formed in his head, and he grinned like a lunatic waiting on their next supper at the thought. Hijikata sighed and left him to his antics, shivering as he went in search of Mitsuba and the guest, and dragged along a Yamazaki who had fainted shortly after swallowing the key.

If this Kagura really was a princess like she claimed she was, he would have no qualms about making her his wife… but he would have to check if she was also masochistic enoug – ahem – _suitable_ enough to be his wife…

* * *

Mitsuba smiled as she walked down the hall, leading the young lady with her into the baths. She couldn't stop smiling with this new guest, finding her to be the perfect fit.

When the two of them had gone off on their own and left the men behind in the front hall, she had become quickly acquainted with Kagura, who latched onto her like a young sister.

She was cute and funny, and it seemed as if she was also on par with her brother in terms of the quick-sliver tongue and in strength. And the fact that she'd said she was a princess was the finishing top pointer.

As his sister, there was pretty much nothing Mitsuba didn't know about her brother, so she'd caught on very swiftly when she saw him act differently with this girl. Maybe he was feeling like he wanted to take a break by teasing this girl after meeting hundreds of other young ladies, but she had seen that spark in her brother's eye whenever he interacted with Kagura.

She knew that she was the right one for him.

But based on his condition, if she wasn't a real princess, then he wouldn't try to even consider a proposal. She knew he was serious about that.

So it was up to his big sister to help him out with.

* * *

Kagura smiled and patted her full belly, thanking the older, pretty lady who she nicknamed Mitsu-chan who sat beside her in the dining hall, where servants had been going in and out hurriedly to fill the table, empty it and come back again in several rotations.

She had emptied about fifteen full pots of rice, devoured about ten different main dishes, twenty different appetizers and then downed twenty kinds of desserts afterwards… and only then, had she felt her hunger sate.

She had taken a nice, long bath (after they found a spare key for the handcuffs, which, thankfully, didn't come from Yamazaki's stomach) and had her hair done up with elegant combs and kanzashi, and wore something a thing they called, 'kimono'. It was made from red silk and patterned with yellow and golden peonies. It was tighter to wear and restricted her movements more than her usual cheongsam, but it was also fairly pretty and made her feel like a princess. Not that she wasn't, of course, but, she was feeling strange and self-conscious, mainly because of the sadist who—

"Uwah, I can't believe you're alive even after eating all that food. Aneue, this person isn't human, so please get away from her. You might catch something worse."

She wanted to groan at that drawling, laid-back tone. It was this quirky, sadistic guy who was making her feel strange. And when she felt down or moody or out of sorts, she ended up eating a lot more than she did.

When she first ended up in front of the castle's door, she hadn't expected to come face to face with a bishoune—ahem—sadistic prince of the planet of sadists. She didn't know that he was a sadistic bastard – if she did, then she wouldn't have stared at him for so long.

Being the princess – the _only_ royal female in her family for years, she had grown accustomed to seeing males and meeting them and treating them like males. So if there was someone from the opposite sex walking around in front of her face and checking her out, she had no problems and didn't care. It never bothered her (except, maybe her overprotective father and brother, and her surrogate father and brother).

But _this_ particular guy… no, this particular annoying-as-hell and also sadistically-cruel-as-hell-asshole…

He was different.

Sure, he had the same kind of sadistic glint in his eyes like her brother did…

And he was about the same height as her brother…

And he was also seemingly handy with a sword like her surrogate-second-father/bodyguard was…

But he was… different from all of them.

The first thing that had struck her when she saw him was his features. He had sandy brown hair cut neatly around his head and wasn't long, but looked as silky as her dog's hair (which was of the highest compliment, because her gargantuan large dog was one of the only creatures living that she cared for more than anything), flawless skin, high cheekbones and a chiseled nose, and very nice looking lips.

But it was the eyes, the brown-red eyes that flashed a gorgeous blood red when the lights hit them at a certain angle that had caught her attention.

Except… when he smirked down at her with an evil gleam, did that sparkly, strange feeling in her chest go away, replaced by a burning wave of annoyance and hatred. And she hated him even more when he tried to slam the door in her face, making her wave her umbrella. Making her use her energy for something pointless made her feel even more irritated with him.

But that interest in the beginning, and her being a little self-conscious around this so called prince… didn't disappear.

She must have caught something deadly from him.

"Sou-chan, you musn't say something of a lady who's growing. You were just as bad when you were a child with your eating habits." The lady scolded him, and Kagura smiled to herself when she saw him bow his head and apologize… well, mainly to the lady and not to her.

"I don't think even I ate like a giant hog when I was younger, Aneue." He muttered, and she saw the sneer he gave her when the lady looked away, and resisted the urge to throw her chopsticks at his face.

"Well, then, Kagura-san, do you mind telling us how you got lost in this terrible storm? And… you've said that you were also a princess, so would you mind telling us from where…?" the pretty lady asked her, and after picking her teeth with a toothpick, Kagura shifted in her seat to face her (and also flicked the toothpick at the sadists' face while she was at it).

"Are you going to throw me out if I say I'm not a princess?"

" _I_ might, but Aneue wouldn't do that to a guest under the Okita family's care."

"I wasn't asking you, do-Sadist," she gave him a glare, and turned back to the woman. "I was actually on my way across the country with my troupe when I got separated from them. There was a quarrel down the road, and I fought my way across-,"

" _Fought_ your way across?" the sadist asked, his eyebrows raised. It didn't sound so unbelievable, after she'd shown him what she could do with just her umbrella.

"Yep, and then it started raining. I tried to look for shelter and even tried to make some by bringing down some trees, but that didn't work so-,"

"Wait, you _brought_ down _trees_?!"

She glared at him, snapping, "Stop interrupting, you! But yeah, that didn't work, and then I fell into a pond, which was how I got mud on my clothes, and then I came across your castle when I wandered around. The rain was making it really hard to see, you know, so I didn't know where I was going exactly. That's how I ended up at the castle instead of some other town, I suppose."

"My, my, what a horrible ordeal to go through for one so young…" Mitsu-chan said, putting a hand to her face and looking empathetic. "Then what about your companions? They must be busy looking for you by now."

"They'll be fine-aru. They can handle themselves. And I can just go and find them in the morning, so-,"

"Judging by the looks of that storm, it might be a while until it lifts around this area, Kagura-san. Perhaps you can just wait until then. The terrain makes it difficult for outsiders to navigate themselves properly, Kagura-san, and I would hate for you to be lost until it's actually safe around this area."

Kagura closed her mouth in shock. Stay in this place where the sadist lurked around, and possibly for more than a night? Who knew what would happen to her?

But then again, if she did go out like Mitsu-chan said and got lost… "I would never see Sadaharu and Gin-chan again…" she murmured, then piped up, "Okay, Mitsu-chan."

"Mitsu? Aneue, is that-,"

"She made a nickname for me, Sou-chan. Isn't it adorable?" Mitsu-chan laughed at her brother, and looked delighted. She came over and held Kagura's hands, smiling. "I welcome you with open arms, Kagura-san. And there's also one more thing…" She stooped down to whisper in Kagura's ear.

"What is it-aru?"

"Are you a real princess?"

"Eh? Yeah, I am, but what?"

"Are you engaged to anyone or interested in anyone?"

"Well, I love Gin-chan and Sadaharu and Shinpachi and eggs over rice and-,"

"I'm asking if you love anyone romantically."

Kagura went silent at that. She couldn't say what romance was, really. Her father had told her how he met her mother, and how their love started in bed (whatever that meant), but she hadn't had much (more like none) progress, practice or comprehension of what love was.

"Mmm… no, I guess."

"I see…"

"Aneue, what are you whispering about over there?" the sadists' voice floated over, and Mitsu-chan straightened up, waving her hand.

"Just girl talk, Sou-chan. Would you mind going ahead first and tell Toshiro-san to wait in our room? I'm going to go and help Kagura-san's bedding and be right up."

The sadist spoke up before she was able to continue talking with Mitsu-chan. "About that, Aneue. Why don't you leave escorting her up to me? You have to rest soon, don't you? Staying up this late just for one… er… young lady is not good for your health. I'll bring her up, so you can go ahead and get it ready."

Kagura stilled, shocked. Mitsu-chan seemed to pause as well, but recovered with a big smile on her face. "Oh, Sou-chan, you're so thoughtful. But I can't just leave Kagura-san without-,"

"Just leave it to me, Aneue. You're just as important. And do you think that I'll leave a guest without all the hospitalities due to our family name? Just trust me." The sadist came closer to the two, and started leading away his sister and told the servants to accompany her back upstairs.

"W-wait, Mitsu-chan-," Kagura called out, standing up at the last minute to go after her when the sadist caught her arm while tripping her at the same time. "What are you doing, bastard?!"

"Aneue is very sick. She doesn't have the time or energy to go around playing hostess for someone like you, so that's enough." At the harshness in his voice, and the trepidation edging that tone, Kagura stopped and stared up at him.

"Mitsu-chan is sick? But she looked fine-,"

"A brat like you won't understand. Now, get up and let's go. The guest room is a little farther off on the third floor. We have a walk to go on." He snapped, and turned on his heel, leaving her standing there. He flashed on a flashlight in his hand and walked down the hall on his own, snapping his fingers so that the lights in the dining hall went off automatically.

Shaking herself off of the strange pang she felt in her chest, Kagura stepped forward, running after the young man who had already gone off.

The two walked in the darkness in silence, their footsteps the only indication of a human presence. Because the sadist's legs were longer than hers, she had to almost sprint to keep up with his quick stride. After going through the hall on the second floor, she finally snapped, "Oi, you sadistic bastard, can't you walk a little slower for a lady here? My feet are killing me-aru."

"How old are you to be complaining about sore feet?"

"I'm sixteen-aru, but that doesn't matter. I'm a lady, so you have to treat me nicely."

"Lady, my ass…" he muttered, but surprisingly enough, he stopped, then resumed his pace, but a tad more slowly…

And then he suddenly increased his pace, leaving her behind in the dark.

… or not.

Yelling, she ran after him, but shouted in surprise when she tripped on something and almost fell forward on her face. But her quick instincts helped her flip herself into the air with her arms before her face touched the ground, and she came back up to accidentally knock over the sadist.

They both ended up tumbling to the ground, and the flashlight went spiraling, blinking, then sputtered out.

"Ouch… damn it, what the hell are you doing, playing around in the dark like this?" he muttered, and she answered, "That's my line, you potty brat. Escorting the guest, _my ass_. You're just toying with me, aren't you? Typical sadist." She struggled to get up, but her limbs were tangled up with his, so she couldn't move around properly. She yelped when his head smacked into her chin, and heard him curse when she accidentally pressed her foot into his lower body.

"Stop sticking your crotch in my face, you pervert!"

"I'm not trying to! What are you—oi, what's this?" she screamed when she felt a hand press into her chest, and knocked her head forward to hit him. "Ow, damn it, what was that for?!"

"Y-you—you—you—th-that was—that was dominic violin!"

"… You mean domestic violence? That wasn't even close to it. We're not even married, so-,"

"That doesn't matter! You-you walking case of a sexual harasser!"

"Oh, I see. That was your chest? I thought I was touching up a wall because you're so flat."

She tried to hit him, but failed, and ending up smacking into his shoulder. He grabbed her head and said, "Hold on, China, you need to stop moving around so much, or else I won't-,"

"Don't touch me, you sadist!"

She heard him sigh, "This was your fault, so pardon me for trying to get us out of this tangled mess."

"What are you talking about, you purposefully walked on ahead just to piss me off!"

He grunted, "Oh? So you figured that out now? You're pretty dense, considering-,"

She finally managed to untangle her arms and legs and yanked on the sadist's shirt to yell in his face. Because it was dark, she couldn't tell whether she had grabbed his pants or his shirt, and whether she was actually yelling in his face. "Well, that's your fault, baka-sadist!"

"First it was do-sadist, then it was brat and now it's baka-sadist? You need to be a lot more creative—," abruptly, he stopped. "Oi, China, do you know what kind of position we're in right now?"

She blinked her eyes. In the sudden flash of lightning that lit up the inside of the hall, she saw a pair of red eyes peering up at her… and directly into her own eyes. And she also understood what he was talking about. He was on the ground right under her, but she was basically straddling his stomach and was extremel-y close to him in proximity.

She jerked herself backwards in surprise, almost too quickly, and a lock of stray hair got caught in the button of his shirt. "Owwie! Damn it, stupid-,"

"Hold on, baka-China. You're only going to end up tangling yourself more or get your hair pulled out." She immediately went still when his fingers came up to touch her head while groping around in the dark, then trail down to her face, tracing the lock of hair stuck in the space between his button and his shirt.

She quieted down as he started untangling her hair, trying to get it unknotted from his button in the dark. Despite him being a sadist like she thought, he was surprisingly gentle with his fingers, and made a quick work of the knot, loosening her hair and letting it pull back.

She couldn't help but scent his smell, which smelled crisp like fresh, clean soap, and with the slight aroma of burning sugar with a touch of metal, as if he had been near a blacksmith or worked with swords.

"Oi, what are you doing. Get off of me already."

She blinked, then scrambled off of him, her face warm. If it wasn't dark right now, he would have seen how red her cheeks and ears were. And that would have been mortifying.

"If you're done rolling around on the ground, then how about we continue on? The room's still pretty far off." he got up swiftly like nothing happened, and started walking off when her hand reached out to grab at his black jacket.

He stopped, turning around to look down at her. "What do you want?"

"Don't walk so fast this time, sadist."

"Don't count on it."

Even though he's said likewise, she found that he actually did slow down. A lot.

And when the two had been walking in silence for a few minutes, he broke the terse silence between them by saying, "Aneue's had a weak body since she was born. But since she was the heir to the throne, our parents had been relentless on working her out, and she took that duty of queen-ship too seriously. She's had several hurdles with her life, and she was getting better… till now."

She snapped her head up and looked at him in surprise. She couldn't see his face, but by the tone in his voice and the topic of the conversation, she knew that he was in pain. Feeling scared to lose someone you love and being unable to do anything about it was something she knew.

Despite him being a sadist… that was a point she knew and could empathize with very well.

"How long does she have?" she carefully asked.

She didn't expect an answer from him, so she was surprised when he did reply, "Not… long. If she's stressed or worn out from too much work, then… even less. With her health, it's unpredictable."

"Then she should be fine-aru." She stated.

His responding tone was bitter. "Huh? What part of fine does-,"

"Mitsu-chan has you. You're a sadistic bastard who deserves to get knocked out and buried in a hole, but you seem like you care for your sister a lot. And she seems to be surrounded by the people important to her, so she'll be fine." Her thoughts flashed back to her mother who had died when she was young, after suffering from a long, unknown illness. At that time, she had been the only one to take care of her mother while her father and brother were away. And they too, had come back too late, despite knowing all the time what her mother had been going through.

She heard his footsteps stop, and she stilled as well, suddenly self-conscious. Silence hung in the air between them, and she sputtered, "What?"

"Nothing." It sounded like he let out a breath and shifted on his feet and walked forward. "Just thinking how you're not completely blockheaded, despite being the big-mouthed brat I thought you were."

"Hmph, I don't want to hear that from a shitty potty-mouthed brat like you."

"That's ironic, coming from you. China."

"Whatever. Sadist." She couldn't help but smile this time, though.

Well, she was, at least, until he tripped her again.

* * *

By the time the two of them had made it to the so-called guest room, Okita's clothes were half rumpled, torn and also a little bloody, and he was nursing a bloody nose and a slightly sprained wrist. Kagura was in no better condition, with all of her hair adornments torn out, her hair mussed up and her obi unraveling and trying to trip her feet as she walked clumsily in the kimono. Kagura had half dragged his body into the room and thrown him in front of her, huffing as she walked to Mistuba and Hijikata, who stared at the two in shock.

"My, my… I thought Sou-chan was just escorting Kagura-san up the castle. Did you two take a nice walk around outside?" Mitsuba asked, laughing. Okita was down on the ground in what seemed like a dead faint, and his brother in law walked forward to see if he was alright.

"Oi, Sougo. Sougo, are you-," Hijikata was cut off when Okita's limbs snaked up in a cobra twist and slammed him down into the rug covered tiles.

"100 dead Hijikatas… oh. Hijikata-san, are you really dead?"

"Let. Me. Go. You. Little. Punk." He coughed out, and Okita reluctantly released him and got up, cradling his hurt wrist and looking around the room, noticing that he had finally arrived.

"Well, we ran into some trouble on the way, so we were late. I'm sorry, Aneue."

"No, it's alright, Sou-chan. I'm actually glad that you two took the time to know each other better." Kagura made a gagging noise, and stuck out her tongue in Okita's direction.

He answered with a, "Oi, considering how you dragged me all the way here, I'm the main victim here."

"Well, then you shouldn't have been so wimpy, letting a girl like me kick your ass."

"I can show you how 'kicking ass' really is if we take this outside, you China-brat-,"

"If I had my umbrella, you would have holes in your face by now, you Sadist!"

Mitsuba giggled to herself at their interaction, noting how neither of them were willing to back down. Hijikata sighed, "Mitsuba, if you leave them like that, they might tear each others' heads off. Are you sure about this?"

"I'm very sure, Toshiro-san," she whispered to her husband, and he gave another sigh, but walked over and pulled the two quarreling persons apart. "Kagura-san, your bed's just been made, so why don't you go in?"

At Mitsuba's prompting, Kagura enthusiastically nodded, and throwing a glare at Okita, opened the door to the bedroom, following a maid inside.

"Sou-chan, before you go in, there's something I should check in with you first." She called out to her brother, who had been staring at the back of the girl's head as she went inside.

"What is it, Aneue?"

"You haven't outright rejected Kagura-san as a princess candidate, so I was wondering if you were interested in her."

Her question must have surprised him, because he didn't answer for a while, only staring at her. "… Aneue, you do realize that she might not be a real one."

She smiled. "Yes, but that's why I went through all the trouble of-,"

"EEEEHHHHHH?!" a loud scream came from the room, and to Mitsuba's delight, Okita was the first one to react and run inside.

"What are you yelling about, Chi-," she heard him pause, then open the door wider as he came back out and calmly walked to Mitsuba with a confused face. "Aneue…? Please tell me I am seeing things… did I really just see about twenty mattresses and twenty quilts and blankets piled on top of the other?"

"No, you're not, Sou-chan." Mitsuba countered as she put a finger to her lips and pulled him inside the bedroom where Kagura was. "Let me explain…"

* * *

When Kagura stepped inside the room, she had expected something like a nice fluffy bed to jump on right away and go to sleep. Seeing how stylish Mitsuba was in a traditional Japanese way, a nice futon-bed might have been nice, too.

She did not expect the large, tall and slightly unstable looking pile of beddings and mattresses piled on top of the other. It looked neat enough… and it also looked nice enough… if it hadn't been at least twenty feet high in the air.

Kagura prodded the pile of mattresses, checking to see if it was unstable. It didn't budge under her touch, but when she held out a fist and punched it, it did lightly shake.

"Well, well, I see you've got your wish of going to bed like the real princess you are." That snarky voice.

She sighed and turned around, waving her fist. "I see you that you haven't been punished enough, you masochistic/sadistic pervert. And I am a stupid real to blood and bone princess with a bald Papi who's strong enough to knock your head off with a flick of his fingers, so suck on that."

"Seeing how you are, I find that a little hard to believe."

"Well, that's because—I—I don't want to hurt anyone while I was here," she said, and muttered, "Except maybe kill you."

"I heard that."

"Whatever, sadist. Was this your idea of a joke, anyway? If I fall in my sleep, I'll crack my neck and die. Did that not occur to you? Or if there was an earthquake in the middle of the night, this bed will shake like crazy and I'll fall with hundreds of mattresses squashing me flat. Or I-,"

"Oi, you're going to hurt Aneue's feelings, you know. She made that."  
She clamped her mouth shut at the mentioning of her newest friend. If Mitsuba had made it, then… well… she must have had a reason to.

"And that's how it is. See you in the morning, China-brat." She startled when she saw the lights flick off, then the door slam. She also heard the click of a lock turning and spun around, pounding at the door.

"Oi, you *bleep*ing sadist! What the hell are you doing-aru?! What if I need to go poop in the middle of the night? What are you going to do if you find a long piece of *bleep* in this room-,"

"There's a personal bathroom in there, idiot." He said through the door. It was surprising that he was still there, but beyond the door. What happened to the others, anyway?

"What if I want water?" she asked.

"Just ring up a maid." He answered, sounding bored.

"What if I want to kill you right now?"

"You can try, but you're also a hundred years too young to try something like that. Oh, and don't even think about breaking down this door. I have your umbrella as hostage."

She groaned, letting out a long string of curses. "Hope you survive, China."

Eh…? _Survive?_

She heard his footsteps and his laughing fade away with every passing second, and she had no choice but to turn back to the tall bed and stare up. She sighed once, feeling all that weariness come crashing down on her. Whatever this bed was, it was, at least, a bed.

She climbed the extremely long ladder up ("That sadist-bastard, he totally planned this.") and when she got to the top, ended up collapsing without pulling the covers over herself.

The moment her head hit the large mound of pillows, she was out.

At least… she _was_ out, for the first hour or so…

Until she realized that there was something in the bed approximately in the next half hour.

Whatever it was, it was poking into her back and stayed there, almost moving around to stick into her back whenever she moved around.

There had to be something in the bed. She tossed and turned all night, trying to ignore it, but couldn't sleep with it constantly poking into her back. She tried stripping off her clothes and inspecting the kimono in the dark, feeling up the silky fabric, but there wasn't anything in it.

She tried pulling the covers back and pressing her fingers into the mattress, but nothing came out or up. It was only when she lay back down did that thing continue to press into her back.

And it was getting as annoying as hell.

She stayed that way the entire night, tossing and turning, so that when it was morning, she had large panda bags under her eyes and a zoned out expression, not to mention, aching muscles everywhere.

"How did you sleep, Kagura-san?" Mitsuba, who had come up to her room first thing in the morning with a cup of tea asked. Kagura wanted to spit out, 'horribly', but seeing Mitsuba's glowing face and also remembering Okita's comment about how she was sick and stress was bad for her, she managed to force a smile.

"I slept well-aru. Thank you for everything, Mitsu-chan."

She couldn't tell because it was for the split of a second, but she swore Mitsuba's eyebrows scrunched together in a frown and her voice sounded disappointed when she said, "I see. You're welcome, Kagura-san."

But it sounded like she was back to her normal, hospitable self when the two of them were back on the solid ground and she said, "Let me help you get dressed in a new kimono, Kagura-san. I have a new one picked out for you."

"Eh… but, since I'm leaving, shouldn't I get my clothes back? A maid took it to wash yesterday, and…"

The older woman winked at her as she pulled up the expensive looking clothes in front of Kagura. "Don't worry, Kagura-san. This one is a gift from me to you, so you can keep it when you leave."

"Thank you, Mitsu-chan!" Kagura leaped at Mitsuba, giving her a firm hug, and blinked when she felt something at Mitsuba's stomach bump into her torso. She wondered to herself what it was, but kept silent as the older woman started helping her undress and then change into the other kimono.

* * *

"Good morning, Sou-chan." Okita snapped his head up to see Mitsuba, along with Kagura, who had also changed into another kimono with a long obi and furisode sleeves, typical for ladies who had yet to be married.

"Good morning, Aneu-," he was cut off when Hijikata came along, right behind Mitsuba and gave her a light kiss on her cheek.

"Good morning, Mitsuba, Kagura-san."

"Morning, mayora." She answered, and Okita almost wanted to kiss her for that. It appeared that Hijikata didn't take to the nickname very much, his eyes narrowing and a vein popping in his forehead as he stiffly returned her morning call. Another valuable ally against the mayonnaise loving man who had stolen his sister away.

Mitsuba sat down at her usual seat in the farthest end in the table, which was reserved for the queen or king, and Hijikata sat down next to her and across from Okita, picking up the mayonnaise bottle first from the long table piled with foods.

He watched Kagura sit down from the farthest seat from him beside Hijikata, trying to get comfortable in her new outfit, and pick up her chopsticks. She was purposely avoiding his waving, his glaring and him poking a chopstick into her ankle with each one he threw under the table.

Finally, he said, "Oi, China, it looks like you slept well."

He saw her look up at him slowly, her cerulean blue eyes widening in surprise, then narrow. What he didn't expect was her getting up and jumping over the table, knocking him to the ground, snarling, "So it was you, you bastard! It's your fault that I didn't get my beauty sleep?!"

He might have actually enjoyed the situation where she was on top of him, had she not been trying to claw his face off with her fingers. He quickly grabbed her hands, flipped her over with a leg and pressed her down into the ground with his weight and snapped, "It's a little too early to be snapping about that, China."

"Sou-chan, Kagura-san! Both of you, what-,"

"I know you did it, you sadist! Sneaking into my bed and pestering me so that I couldn't sleep because of that stupid lump that kept me up all night-," suddenly, she stopped and turned her head to Mitsuba, who was staring at the two in shock. "Wait, no, I, I mean, I did sleep alright, Mitsu-chan, you're not at fault or anything, it's just that there was something strange in my bed-,"

"And you think _I_ was it?!"

She was rambling on, "Shut up, sadist—and it just kept me up for a few hours, so I have aches all over. But it's really not your fault, Mitsu-chan, so don't say anything!"

All at once, Okita knew that she was really trying to be considerate of his sister's feelings because of what he'd said to her yesterday night.

And he wanted to laugh because she didn't need to be sorry at all.

"Kagura-san, it's alright, it's alright. I know."

"What? Wait, you know about the weird thingie in the bed? Did it come and haunt you too-aru?"

"No, that wasn't it. It would be faster to explain this, so why don't we all go upstairs again?"

* * *

Kagura stared at the small green pea in Mitsuba's fingers, her eyes looking like they wanted to pop out of their sockets and her face red with what could have been either embarrassment or anger.

"I'm sorry for this, Kagura-san, but it was necessary."

"Mitsu-chan's not at fault for this," she whispered, and yanked out her sharp flower kanzashi and threw it as hard as she could towards the person she hated at this moment. "It's _his_ fault."

Okita ducked and stared at the dangerous hair adornment sticking into the wall then straightened up and barely dodged a kick flying at his face with a forearm.

"I can't believe you'd done all that just because of your obsession with _real princesses_! You *bleep*ed up someone's nice nap because you wanted to _test_ them? How low can you get?!" she was, undoubtedly pissed off at the ridiculous situation.

"It wasn't my-," Okita started, before he had to jump back in order to avoid a ground splitting kick that cracked the tiles.

"Not your fault, my ass! You *bleep*ing sadist, you're going to regret the day you were ever born when you put that pea in my bed! This was absolutely *bleep*ing ridiculous! Saying that you could test whether a princess was real if she could feel a small pea under twenty mattresses and whatnot which proved her delicacy?! Are you *bleep*ing kidding me?!" Okita had to keep dodging her flurries of kicks and punches, which came rather slowly and were misdirected because of her clothes constraining her body, but were also seemingly heavier than the ones she threw at him yesterday.

Was it because she was angry at him?

Okita cursed at the situation he was in right now. Well, it technically was his fault so he couldn't say anything… since he _did_ keep her awake at night.

After hearing Mitsuba's plan of testing out Kagura's authenticity as a princess, he had decided to take matters into his own hands so that things would fall into place and according to plan.

Even if she was a real princess, delicacy had nothing to do with common sense, and she was never going to actually feel a small pea under the layers of mattresses. If you wanted something like _that_ to actually happen, there needed to have been a serious amount of twisting in terms of science.

So what Okita had done was sneak back inside her room (which he had locked purposely) and placed a motion-seeking device under her first mattress that would track her movements and bother her from her sleep. If all was successful (which it was), then Mitsuba would end up thinking that Kagura was a real princess (real enough to him at least, in his own definition) and she wouldn't have to leave.

He knew that he had acted rather childishly, instead of trying to face her himself, but all in all, he had never had to deal with someone like her before… much less try to deal with feelings these foreign emotions inside.

Okita ducked her left handed punch and lunged under, grabbing her long furisode sleeves and twisting her arms behind her back, then untying her obi and unwinding it, then started unraveling her and then tied her back altogether with a spin. It was one of his best sadist moves that he used while trying to tie down his prey, and soon he had a nicely tied of Kagura at his feet, who was still growling at him.

"Untie me right now, you *bleep*ing sadistic bastard! Wait till I get my hands on you, I'll-,"

"You're still full of energy, even when you didn't eat breakfast, China. Looks like I'll have to discipline you," he grabbed her waist and threw her over his shoulder, and started walking down the hall.

* * *

Mitsuba looked at the retreating backs of the two with a wide smile on her face, and her husband looked down at her with observant blue eyes. He had already noticed what his young brother in law hadn't.

"You did that on purpose, didn't you, Mitsuba?"

She looked up at him, smiling. "Hm?"

"You set Sougo up so that the brat would fall out with him."

"Well, I thought that it wouldn't be fun at all if their relationship went smoothly, so I thought I'd help out a little." She giggled, and pulled on his hand.

"But concealing the fact and making it seem as if you were fatally ill was a little out of line, Mitsuba. Sougo's not going to be thrilled with the fact that you lied."

"A couple and a family grows in love with conflicts, Toshiro-san. If you expect everything to always go smoothly and be sweet, then that would be even odder. And… you should know that best of all."

Hijikata sighed, giving her a small smile and wrapped his arms around her shoulders, then put a hand on her lower stomach, saying, "There's no way I'd forget. I finally got you and this one, after all."

Her eyes softened as she met his eyes. "Maybe we should name her after Kagura-san for Sou-chan."

"It's going to be a boy, Mitsuba," he replied. "And we are _not_ going to name him after anyone in the family. Especially Sougo's."

"Well, since I'm going to have Kagura-san as a sister in law, maybe another male in the family won't be too bad. How does Togoro sound?"

"I like Toshizou better, but…" he said, moving her around back towards the direction of the dining hall. "You've already had enough of playing matchmaking for an entire lifetime by the time those two get together, so we should go back and finish breakfast."

* * *

Kagura glared up at the lying son of a *bleep* who had tied her up like a hog and plopped her over his shoulder and brought her all the way through the castle and outside. They had gotten strange looks from the servants and guards, but no one dared to say anything outright (because of a certain someone who they knew would be happy to torture them if they were out of line).

Looking around at the beds of flowers and the canopy of trees, Kagura asked, "Why'd you bring me to a dirt-hole?"

"This isn't a dirt-hole, idiot." He answered her as he set her down on a chair (still tied up, to her dismay). They'd entered a short of overhanging gazebo made from a man-made structure intertwined with natural green, making it look like a classically old piece of garden architecture.

"Well, there's dirt, and there's a hole." She pointed out, jerking her chin at each of the subjects mentioned. "And it's wet and cold out here, and-,"

"You—never mind." He started, but he shook his head, trailing off. When he spoke again, she realized that his tone had taken a rather serious turn. "You didn't give me a chance to explain anything before you tried killing me off, China."

She snorted, but did become a little nervous at where this was heading. "Since when have we gotten so friendly?"

"Ever since you tried to blow my face off at the door last night. And you also tried to accidentally crush my *bleep* in the dark, headbutted me, knocked me out and dragged me unconscious to the guest room, sprained my wrist, kicked me and punched me several times after that, and jumped me this morning during breakfast," he listed out, staring down at her levelly. It made her feel (just a little bit) like she was really being reprimanded, and she was only able to sputter out a "What-," before he came in close and put either of his arms next to her head and clenched the frame of the chair she was sitting in.

He was staring right into her face, those red eyes boring into hers. The proximity of his presence and the intensity in his gaze was enough to make her heart start thumping and the heat rush to her face.

"S-so what about it? Are you trying to say that we should all try to get along and expect me to forgive you?"

"No." he replied, his lips turning into a rather arrogant smirk. "I expect you to accept my proposal since you passed with flying colors."

Kagura blinked. She blinked again and stared at the sadist, her expression morphing into one of confusion and horror. Did she just hear him say—

"Is it that hard to say 'yes' to a marriage proposal, China?"

Then she flipped out.

"EEEEEEHHHHHHHHHHHH?!" she yelped, her entire body jerking backwards rather violently and tipping backwards on the chair. He managed to catch her on time and brought her and the chair back on level ground. "Wh-what-what the hell are you playing at-aru?!"

He shrugged his shoulders and pulled back on his feet, so that he gave her room again. "I'm interested in you. Screw the whole princess thing – you're the best interesting toy—I mean, pigle-," she kicked him in the shin. "— _lady_ -," and she noticed that he said that as if he had trouble saying it because it was so ridiculous. "—and I don't want to let you go."

"…A-and you expect me to believe that, you *bleep*ing do-Sadist?" she said, but her voice betrayed her thoughts and came out sounding like a 7 year old tsundere. "Y-you lied and tricked me already, so how do I expect to-,"

"I told you about Aneue. Because she doesn't' have long left, I have to take the throne in her place. And I need a wife if I have to complete the given requirements that come from tradition."

"Then go find a nice complacent and subservient *bleep* to be your lifelong slave! I'm-,"

"You're the 501st princess that I've come across and determined to be right for me. I've spent weeks worth of time already, scrolling through every blueblood in the land, and none of them came close to being as interesting as you are."

Her cheeks went red at that, despite her thinking to herself that what he said might have been different from what she was expecting.

"But Aneue wouldn't have determined you to be a suitable girl unless you were a real princess-,"

"—Which, I heard, was supposed to have been _your_ condition, not hers." She interjected.

"—And which is why she went through the entire pea under mattress thing."

"Then why the *bleep* did you go to all that trouble instead of asking me-," she stopped and her eyes went wide… at the sight of him blushing.

"I… didn't… I didn't know how. Aneue's the only one I've cared for my entire life, and I'd never been interested in any girl as much as you-,"

"Go figure. You were just busy making them your slaves, huh." She muttered, but did feel a lot better about the ordeal. She couldn't blame him or anything, since she had no experience either. And… it felt a little special, to be considered someone's first -

"—as a way to kill time." With that sentence, all the fuzzy feelings she had inside died in an instant.

Would it have been an understatement to say that this guy was a sadistic *bleep*? He could act like a real asshole, but the next time, turned into a regular guy who made her jump and feel all fuzzy inside… the fact that he was making her ride this emotional roller-coaster and toying with her was…

Well, it hurt.

She snapped free from her tight restraints and tore the cloth that was tying her up and lunged at him, but surprisingly enough, it was as if he'd anticipated her to do that, as he sidestepped her incoming punch, then grabbed her wrist and pulled her close to him.

He said in a sing-songy voice, "Feisty, feisty. You should really learn not to keep using your fists for everything, China… if you are the princess you claim to be."

"I don't want to hear that from a dirty sadist of a prince like you! You've been keeping up this farce of an act and kept screwing me over so many times already! Am I that interesting of a toy that you won't even consider how I feel—am I that worthless to you as a -," she stopped when his face leaned closer in so that his forehead was against hers.

"See? You go off like a kettle so easily, but you make the formidable opponent who doesn't go down as readily. It's simple to rile you up and I love seeing the interesting things you do. With you, things will never get boring. Would it be so wrong to want to keep you by my side for that?"

"You're just dodging the main point here, baka – and playing with me for it-," she was running out of things to say as she felt his face get closer. She managed to stall him with, "The fact is that you're a sadist-,"

She could feel his breath on her cheek. "-Is not going to change. But you make a fair sadistic opponent, so you can't say anything about that, China."

"At least I don't try to enslave people." She muttered.

"You called me a slave the first time you met me."

"And you called me a piglet, you Chihuahua!"

"If you're going to try the canine breed, try wolf instead."

"You're an incorrigible, unforgivable bastard," she breathed out as the distance between the two was coming almost close to nothing. "And… and…"

"Try 'sadistic husband'." He was so close to her that she could feel the low simmer of heat coming from his lips against hers.

Forgetting his sadism for the moment, she unconsciously closed her eyes and waited for the touch, not knowing what else to do in such a situation.

And then everything exploded.

* * *

Well, to be correct, something on the other side of the garden exploded, but it did shake the ground and the castle and it also broke the nice mood the two were getting into.

Okita's body switched on from being the awkward but rather devious teenager trying to get it on with his future fiancée (?) to the alert captain and prince of the kingdom, his eyes quickly flicking to the place of disaster and cogs in his mind rolling to analyze what had happened.

"What was…" Kagura started, and unable to answer, Okita grabbed her hand and tugged her along, running back towards the castle.

By the time they made it back to the main hall as one of the servants directed them, Okita and Kagura were looking down from the second floor's balcony and into the main hall's ground, where a battle was taking place.

Okita narrowed his eyes at a young man dressed in formal Chinese wear who was knocking down some of the best soldiers in the Shinsengumi like they were nothing but empty cans with an umbrella and at the huge white dog that was trying to chew off people's head.

His eyes found Hijikata in the midst of the battle, going head to head with a white haired man wielding a wooden bokuto and actually getting pushed back.

He was about to grab his own katana and rush into the fray when he heard Kagura shout, "Gin-chan! Sadaharu!"

Her loud voice made the figures freeze and all battling stopped for a moment to turn and look at the girl. The dog barked at her cheerfully, waving his tail (despite having two soldiers under his paws).

Okita turned to look at her with a surprised expression, "Don't tell me those are your _companions_ …?"

She nodded and turned back to look at the people below them. Most of the foreign men who'd been fighting stopped and started assembling into lines, and the men of the Shinsengumi also pulled back, gathering around Hijikata. But neither side had their weapons sheathed and the tension in the air was as taut as a string.

"Kagura! What are you-," the white haired man shouted, his face going pale. "W-why are you dressed like that?! Did you—oh crap, Umibozu's going to kill me."

"Umibozu?" Okita heard the other soldiers echo out the name, and it sounded as if they knew who it was. As for him, he hadn't ever heard of it.

The girl stared down at her disarray of an attire, frowning. She said, "Oi, sadist, what are you going to do about this, ne?"

"Can't you at least get dressed on your own?"

"You can't say that when you're the one who made me like this." She complained, and Okita heard a gasp coming from below, but ignored it. He sighed and pulled the lapels of her kimono closed. Unfortunately, there was no obi to tie it around with, and she was wearing a white yukata-like dress under it that was slightly transparent. So he took off his outer black Shinsengumi uniform's jacket and put it over her shoulders.

He couldn't help but feel rather satisfied at seeing her in his clothes. It was kind of like marking her as his.

"You blonde haired brat, what have you done with our Kagura?!"

"The name's Okita Sougo, mister." He said, and pulling Kagura into his arms, smirked. "And this, is my future wife, so I don't quite see the problem here."

"Wife?" the man shrilled in a rather unmanly way, and the man whom Okita saw previously in the midst of battle came forward with a smile on his face.

"Iya, iya, that was surprising. Here I thought I would have had to rescue my impertinent and impotent little sister, but it seems like she was on the top of things, even getting herself a husband. Good job, Kagura."

Kagura smacked Okita's face and pulled away from him, glaring down at the young man who looked eerily a lot like her. "This sadist is NOT my husband, Kamui! And what the hell are you doing here – I thought Papi was-,"

"Ka-gu-ra-," came a bellowing voice from the big open door behind them all.

"Oya, oya, speak of the devil." The man named Kamui said, and smiled at the balding man who came into the castle, followed by another teenager wearing glasses and a pretty looking woman in a pink kimono with a naginata at hand.

"Papi?" she said out loud, and tugged on Okita's sleeve. "Let's go down before the *bleep* _really_ hits the fan, Sadist."

When the two came downstairs, all the men who'd been fighting in the main fray of the foreign side rushed at the girl, asking if she was alright and handing her new clothes and glaring at the men from the Shinsengumi. Well… it was mostly the bald old man and the white haired man who were fussing over her.

"So, what is the legendary Umibozu doing here in our humble kingdom, may I ask?" Hijikata asked, stepping forward.

Legendary? Okita's head whirled in confusion, but his eyes landed on Kagura, who was being coddled by the woman in the pink kimono in the corner. The huge white dog had dragged over a big shielding screen and he saw her disappear behind it, presumably to get changed.

"Oi, Zaki, what is Hijikata-san talking about?" Okita nudged Yamazaki, who had been standing next to him and shuddering.

Yamazaki answered back in a whisper, "Umibozu – the legendary conqueror who's united the entire Northern, Southern and Eastern lands under the Yato kingdom with his son Kamui… his domain and his strength easily overpowers that of ours in the Southeastern lands, Okita-taichou… and if… that Kagura-san is-,"

"I'd come here after hearing that my daughter went missing, but now that I've seen that she was kidnapped and raped, this means war-,"

"Wait just a minute, you baldy geezer!" Kagura interrupted, stomping forward, now dressed in a white Chinese cheongsam and her hair up with hair adornments and looking rather cute. "I didn't get kidnapped by sadist and mayora! And who the heck are you to say I got raped when you *bleep* with Mami before marriage?! Gin-chan told me that anything that comes before marriage is rape and should be dealt with the law!"

"K-Kagura-chan, let's not go any further with that, or else-," the teenager in the glasses said, trying to pull her back.

"And Mitsu-chan's been nothing but good to me, and the sadist-," she paused there, and the so called Umibozu interrupted her. "That's enough coming from you, Kagura. We're going back and-,"

Kagura lashed out, but her fist was stopped by her father's hand which gripped it tightly. "I am _not_ going back until I settle my score with this sadist here, and you can't make me."

"And who exactly is this _sadist?"_

"That would be I." Okita stepped forward, and soon he was being scrutinized head to toe with blue eyes. He wanted to stab out those eyes with a pencil or something sharp but kept quiet. "I've already done the deed with China, ("'Done the deed'? Sadist, what are you-,") over there, so it's really up to me to take responsibility. Would that be alright with you, father in law?"

The older man looked extremely flustered (and angry) as he stuttered, "F-father-in—look here, young man-,"

Even Kagura sounded annoyed, and she snapped, "What are you talking about, Sadist, we haven't even kissed and you're saying-,"

Okita strode over and grabbed Kagura's arm and said, "That can be arranged."

And he kissed her in front of everyone else without a care in the world.

* * *

Needless to say, that had caused quite the chaos to go on in the room when the two young royals which involved yelling and shouting and umbrellas being pointed and katanas being whirled into the air.

And then the two young pair of sadists separated and finally got each party to calm down and caused no deaths to occur and started a diplomatic meeting to happen along with the queen and the conquering king.

It took about a day and a half to negotiate for no one to end up dying and no one's balls getting ripped off, and a promise on Mitsuba's end to never make Kagura end up marrying Okita without him going through a long brides' groom course in the Yato kingdom, and a promise on Umibozu's end about never trying to kill off someone because his temper snapped or prevent the two from meeting each other whenever they felt like it.

The deal with Okita's declaration of a proposal and the pair's engagement went unsaid, but it was obvious that the two were going to get married.

Of course, the two were now going steadily into a relationship – (to which both Kagura and Okita disagreed in terms of trying to determine exactly what it was) – and getting to know each other a lot better.

It was a miracle that nothing too extreme had happened. Yet.

"Oi, Sado, are you awake-aru?" Kagura asked the young man who's head was in her lap with a red eye mask on his face. "I know you're not sleeping, so I want you to get off. My legs are falling asleep-aru."

He replied, "I can't sleep with all your 'aru, aru's in my ear, China. You could have been a little quieter about this and I would have been asleep for the past thirty minutes. It's your fault anyway, so deal with-,"

"Bastard, I've lost all feelings in my legs! What are you going to do if I can't-,"

"Then I'll carry you inside, so stop *bleep*ing and sit down properly." he pinched her legs and curled over so that his face was nuzzling her stomach. He looked like a cat basking in the warm sun and enjoying a nap.

He heard her sigh heavily, but lean back into the tree and retained her former position.

Ever since the incident where her family and subordinates had come looking for her and raised Hell in the castle because of Okita, Kagura had decided to stay for a while (along with her so called bodyguard/surrogate father, her dog, and her other personal servants) at the castle.

Why she decided to do so, he was refused the answer to, but he could pretty much guess the motive behind it.

It was the same with him, after all.

They were both trying to deal with the strange feelings they each had for each other and were trying to figure it out. Or so he thought to himself, but things were a lot more complicated in reality since she was such a childish girl who refused his normal advances and he had a lot more fun by making fun of her and engaging in their usual fights.

But they were getting somewhere, more or less.

Speaking of, the recent game they'd participated in required a punishment in which Kagura ended up being a pillow of sorts while Okita napped. The two were both in the gardens, a place that had become one of their usual meeting places.

"So, how long are you going to pretend to sleep?"

"So, how long are you going to pretend never to hear my proposals?"

"You've said the same damn thing over and over, you sadist! Besides, aren't you fine now since Mitsu-chan's not actually dying and you don't have to rush with the whole marriage thing?"

"That has nothing to do with it. If I want to do the things I want to do with you, a marriage makes it a lot easier to do, so-,"

She smacked his forehead with a hand. "Stupid sadist."

"Hmph. You know you love me for it."

"I never said-,"

"Your face says it all. Just give in, China."

"Like hell I'll ever do what you ask me to do, sadist."

"There are other ways to persuade you," he rummaged in his black trousers and pulled out a small red rectangular box that said, 'sukonbu' written on it.

"As if-," she started, but he could already see the hungry interest spark in her eyes. He knew that she loved sukonbu from her bodyguard, Gintoki, who was another fellow sadist he respected very much.

"This is the limited edition that comes out once every ten years in this kingdom, you know."

"Hrrn…" he heard her growl to herself in that frustrated manner he found to be adorable. "You're a stupid sadist."

"Then that would make us quite the pair. The sadist extraordinaire, and the masochistic Chi-,"

He was promptly shut up when she leaned down and kissed him.

"Shut up and hand over the sukonbu-aru."

* * *

About a year's worth of arguing, fighting, brawling and another six months later, the two finally got married.

It was also the date when the princess Souko was born into the world, much to the joy and surprise of the parents and of the newly wedded couple. Okita was already dearly loved and was on a roll to make another potential assassin, and was clearly rivals with the newborn's father ("Go make your own kids, Sougo and leave my Souko alone!" was Hijikata's answer).

There were tears on both sides of the kingdom, and due to the pride of one side, the wedding ended up being an extremely blown up event (not literally, thankfully) and would end up being known for generations on end as the event that tied two kingdoms and the two worst sadistic young royals in each kingdom's entire history together.

And as for the so called pea that was supposedly prominent in bringing the two together…

Well… it got preserved and used a hundred years after that to test another princess for authenticity, and that story got passed down to be known as the Princess and the Pea.

And as for what happened to the young royal couple…

It was one lively evening (about a year after the two had gotten settled down) where the two were engaged in their usual quarrels over petty jealousy on one end and vehement retorts being tossed back on the other.

The young man named Shinpachi, who was more or less Okita's age but Kagura's personal servant (punching bag of a glasses wearing humans) whispered to the Vice-commander, who was busy crowing over his daughter in his arms. "Ne, Hijikata-san, don't you think we should stop them? Kagura-chan looks like she's being pushed back, you know. Are you sure that Okita-san is-,"

"Let them alone. It's their usual thing." He replied noncommittally, utterly absorbed in the cooing baby in his arms. His wife was currently taking a rest in their room from babysitting, so it was up to him to take care of the little princess… and also while overseeing the two young royals so that they didn't end up killing each other.

"But, recently, Kagura-chan's been strange. Well, in terms of her health, you know. She's complained about having morning sicknesses, her diet's increased enormously, and… maybe she's coming down with something?" Shinpachi argued, staring at the two still engaged in a one to one combat with each other.

Hijikata stilled as Shinpachi listed out each symptom. Being the first one to notice his wife's pregnancy early on, he knew all too well of what the 'sickness' was.

It couldn't be…

He watched in horror as the battle stopped between Okita and Kagura as the young princess suddenly stumbled, her hands clutching her mouth and stomach. Okita hurried over to her, looking worried despite having just been locked in an apparent physical quarrel with her.

 ** _And so they lived_ … **

"Oi, China, are you-,"

"Sadist… I feel kinda sick-aru…"

"Are you… maybe…"

 ** _Happily…_**

The palace's doctor confirmed their suspicions.

"Kagura-sama's with her first child. Congratulations, Your Highness."

 ** _Ever_ …**

Hijikata paled when Okita threw the sadistic look at him over Kagura's shoulder… and he could already imagine what would happen within months.

 ** _After…_**

Curled up in a comfortable and very loving position in her husband's arms, Kagura looked up at him, chewing on a piece of sukonbu. "Oi sadist, does this mean that you're going to be my personal slave for the next few months now?"

"Don't count on it, China." Was his toneless reply, but his hands were already protectively around her lower stomach and his demeanor oozed that of a very possessive and cautious father.

"Blergh. I know you love me too much to ignore me. So, how does starting off with foot massages sound? Then go and get me thousands of barrels of sukonbu, then eggs over rice, then another-"

"God, please let me have enough patience to endure these 8 months…" the sadistic prince muttered to himself, but he couldn't hide the small smile that arose from imagining the interesting things that would happen in the future… with this princess, anything could happen, after all.

 ** _The End_**

* * *

 **Okay. And that was that. How was it? I really like writing twists on fairy tales, and this one came to me right away.^^ I think it might have taken a bit of a different route, but I did incorporate all the proper Princess and the Pea thing... well, at least I tried. Did I succeed?**

 **The next one is a much ( _much_ ) shorter one with fluff, set in the regular Gintama world, so look forward to it!**

 **Please leave reviews~**


	2. Welcome Home

**So, this is the next chapter, which is another (much shorter) one-shot... I wrote it after being inspired by a drawing I saw on pixiv, so... here it is!**

 **Thank you to Xliaf27 for reviewing my first chapter and sticking by as my reader^^, and thank you to Kucing Pinetree, garugadot, chantal027, perpetualpoverty, i love okikagu, lu89, mi-chan, mitsuki, guest-san and helloo for reviewing! But seriously, your reviews mean a lot to me... thank you so much /ToT/**

 **And as for your request, Deathblow88-san, I'm working on it, but it might take some time since I have other chapters too...**

 **Leave reviews, etc...**

 **Disclaimers: Gintama does not belong to me**

* * *

Chapter 2: Welcome Home

Tired, worn out and feeling cold stiff, Okita looked at the small flakes of snow fall from the dark night sky, blowing out puffs in waves of sighs. It was nearing 12 o' clock in a regular workday… er… night, and he had finally gone off from work and was going back home.

It had been a long day of trying to kill Hijikata, patrolling the streets and fighting rebel samurai, and another good few hours worth of work in the form of paper documents he needed to read through, sign and fill out. By the time work was over, he was hungry, cold and tired and irritated as hell because he couldn't get home to his wife quick enough.

He smiled to himself when he thought of his recently wedded wife. It had been a little over a month since the two had gotten married and moved into a house of their own around the Shinsengumi compound (despite her saying that she needed to be close to the Yorozuya, where she worked at), but the two were doing quite well off on their own. She hadn't tried to castrate him (yet), and he hadn't tried to strangle her (yet) in their sleep for hogging the covers.

If it was the Okita and Kagura they were about five years ago, then the two might've tried to rip off heads if someone said that the two would make a great couple. Who knew that the two actually did? In the midst of their fights and all their childish quarrels, they had managed to reach a point where they merged together and came out as something more than just rivals and friends. And it had taken another year or so for them to admit it to each other and get hitched, but, well, it had happened.

He groaned as the snow came down even harder, starting to soak into his scarf and his Shinsengumi uniform and squeezing all the warmth he had in his body. The winter in Edo was at its worst this year, and the snow had accumulated in little mounds everywhere and didn't show any signs of stopping.

Even Kagura, who'd loved snow and playing in it like the childish adult she was, refused to step a foot outside their home to go to the Yorozuya, and had taken off weeks worth of time because of it. It was probably more so that the Yorozuya's danna would have been under Kagura's wrath if he'd refused her request, and he wished he could do the same, but a certain someone had bitched about it nonstop by saying how he wasn't being a good husband by refusing to put food on the table (which, considering his wife's enormous appetite, consisted of a lot). If that wasn't enough, the Shinsengumi's Commander Kondou had grilled him about it (as they were in the need of hands whenever he took off to stalk his one-sided love) and he had no choice but to move back and forth for work.

He wasn't able to borrow the Shinsengumi's police car as a transportation tool, but he did manage to grill over Yamazaki for it, and had also completed the day's fill of mischief by adding laxatives to Hijikata's mayonnaise dishes (which was, by far, the best and most common thing he did).

Okita climbed the stairs with a thump, shaking off the small piles of snow on his shoulders, head and boots before twisting open the doorknob with a key and stepping inside.

The inside was less cold than the outside was, but it was obvious that Kagura hadn't turned on the heat. The lights were off entirely, so he assumed that she was asleep by now.

"Typical China." He muttered to himself, a little bitter at how she couldn't have waited up for him to come back. But then again, it was around midnight, and she was quite the heavy sleeper, so she might have fallen asleep while waiting for him.

He shivered as he unwrapped his thick scarf from his neck first thing and started loosening the ties on his boots before calling out in a voice no one would reply to, "I'm ho-,"

He wasn't able to finish, and only able to see something red flash in the dark before he was almost knocked over by something soft and warm.

The arms wrapped around his torso were firm, and he felt a face nuzzle into his chest as if seeking warmth but shivering. He could see the patterns of pink rabbit faces on a yellow pajama top and smelled the pleasant scent that was unique to this person only and knew who it was.

Okita was taken aback for a moment because of her lunging at him, but returned his wife's embrace and put his chin on the top of her head, relishing the warmth coming from her body and muttered, "You were still awake?"

"You're cold." She answered, her voice muffled from his clothes. It didn't sound like she liked getting wet or the change in temperature since he just came inside, but she didn't let go of him.

"And you're warm." He replied, holding her tighter against him and smiling. "Did you get lonely or something? To have waited this late for me to come back is unusual."

"Shut up, sadist." She snapped back, wrapping her arms around his torso more firmly which earned a wheeze coming from him. "I… I just didn't have a proper pillow and couldn't sleep."

"I thought you had Sadaharu as a companion? You could have slept in with him instead. Wasn't that why you insisted on bringing him here when you started vacation?"

"Shut up, sadist. I couldn't leave Sadaharu alone when I knew Gin-chan wasn't going to take care of him properly."

"Danna would be too scared to leave that dog alone _because_ of you, China."

"Hmph." She said in that tsundere voice, making him sigh. When she spoke up again, he had to crane his ears to hear what she was saying. "Sadaharu is Sadaharu, but he can't replace you, baka-sadist."

His lips twitched into a smile, and he could feel the entire's day worth of irritation and weariness fade away. "Yes, yes." The two of them went silent again, and continued to hold each other in the dark.

She spoke up first, "Welcome back."

He smiled. "I'm home."

* * *

 **I thought it was pretty cute. How about you guys?**

 **The next one's about Valentine's Day... though it might not exactly be one you might expect...**


	3. Valentine

**Yo, minna-san~ Here I am, with a** **nother one-shot, set in the Gintama 3-Z world... and as for the summary, the chapter's title already says it all... fufufu^^ Not sure if I got the mood right for this universe, so it might seem a little OOC... hm. Tell me how it went, dear readers...**

 **Thank you to MajoSweetRiver, garugadot, mitsuki, mi-chan, i love okikagu, lu89, helloo and guest-san for reviewing! Thank you for reading my fanfic and for all your encouragement, it really does keep me going^^**

 **Please enjoy and leave reviews, comments, etc!**

 **Disclaimers: Gintama is not mine**

* * *

Chapter 3: Valentine

Kagura stared down in a concentrated glare at the crumpled, bright colored wrapped piece of work on her desk. It was a red package wrapped with a pretty yellow ribbon, and inside it was the hours worth of work she put in last night.

She had debated after weeks worth of time and long hours of conversing with her best friends Soyo and Nobume (her fellow sadist sisters) and finally made the decision to hand them over to—

"What's that?"

She startled at the voice behind her and whisked around, covering up the present on her desk with her arms. "W-what are you doing here-aru?!"

"Whaddaya mean what am I doing here… I'm your teacher, stupid."

She let out a sigh as she came face to face with Ginpachi, her guardian and her homeroom teacher. As usual, he had a huge lollipop stuck in his mouth (strawberry, most likely), was clad in his white outer jacket and had a blank stare on his face.

"It's just Gin-chan… thank goodness."

He raised a white-silver eyebrow at her, grinning. "It being Valentine's and all… is that for that certain someone, Kagura-chan?"

"It's not yours, and it's none of your business, Gin-chan!" she said, crossing her arms and stuffing the present into her desk. She reaffixed her glasses which had been falling down her face and glared up at him.

"Ah, I see. It's for Souchi-kun, then."

Another voice interrupted their conversation, and Kagura froze. "What's for Souichi? Don't you mean Sougo, Danna?"

"Exactly. I meant you, Souichiro-kun. You see, Kagura-chan here, has-,"

She punched him into the wall before he was able to continue any further.

Okita looked over at his teacher's bleeding form stuck in the wall of their classroom and turned to look down at her with an uninterested expression and his laid back voice, "So. What was that about, eh, China? For you to knock out Danna so early in the morning, and of all days, today…"

She gulped. Did he already suspect what Ginpachi had hinted out?

"… It must be your ovulation period, huh. Is that why you're so hyper and emotional?"

She smacked him into the wall next to Ginpachi and stomped out of the classroom.

Stupid sadist. Of course he wouldn't know.

How could he? It had taken her several years to figure it out already, and she still wasn't feeling like those feelings were actually real or not, and never acted on her feelings till now, so how would he know?

It was just like in one of those silly shoujo manga's where the main female heroine finally realized her feelings after years of density and denial of her own feelings for the opposite male character, and when she realized it, she would usually act right away to let him know, and eventually the male character would return her feelings and—

Kagura stopped. And she stared at her fingers which had formed a fist and slammed into the wall, cracking it. She winced as blood started running down her knuckles and realized that she had been getting flustered to the point where she was using violence unconsciously. Ginpachi would be sure to scold her for the repairing fees.

She shook her head, getting lost in her thoughts again. No. That wasn't it. No matter how she thought about it, she didn't know and would never know whether Okita returned her feelings. But knowing his character, he wasn't the kind of guy to do that.

All she wanted to do was just express her feelings to him.

Albeit, privately.

So she was going to hand over the chocolates she made this year to him secretly and that would be that.

She didn't expect for him to notice her or say anything… she just wanted to express herself, even if he didn't know that it was her.

Kagura nodded to herself, clenching her fists together determinedly. Today was the day she would hand the chocolates to him.

Well… hopefully she would.

* * *

Their first period was homeroom, and besides the two electives they had (P.E. and art), they would be in the same classroom all day. Sneaking the chocolates to him would be easy enough.

At least… that's what she thought.

Every time Kagura tried to slip behind Okita and put the chocolates in his bag or his desk, he was either there to glare at her in suspicion or bothering her like hell so she didn't have a chance to.

And every time she called out to him, he was surrounded by girls who were busy licking his feet to give him their sweets and chocolates. The sight ticked her off and she ended up knocking them out using the classroom's mop, including Okita in the mess and stomped off.

After each class was over, she tried to put her chocolates in his belongings without being noticed by anyone, but someone was always there, or Okita was always there to engage in a verbal/physical fight with her.

"Uwooooaaaahhh!" she yelled out into the plain winter sky on top of the school's roof. After an entire day's worth of struggling on how to hand over the chocolates, she had come to the conclusion that the subject of her affections was a stupid, blockheaded bastard who couldn't take a hint at all.

She weaved her fingers into the fence in front of her, looking down at the school grounds. Students were already going out fast from the school now that the day was over. And… well, she had failed in all her attempts.

If it was anything else, he was as sharp as a blade, but as someone who couldn't even notice her hard (and failed) efforts till now…

Kagura sighed heavily and slumped into the metal poles of the fence behind her, sliding down and sitting on the cold ground of the roof, the wrapped package of chocolates in her lap.

"That stupid Sadist doesn't deserve these precious feelings of a girl-aru." She muttered to herself, and tugged on the ribbon, unraveling the package.

Small little pieces of bumpy looking hearts lay in the middle of the silver foil and she picked up one and popped it in her mouth. The chocolate melted in her mouth, but the slightly burnt taste of the recent batch stayed along with the sweetness.

"Hmph." She mumbled, and quickly shoved in one chocolate after the other, disappointment filling her in angry waves. No matter how many she ate, it didn't seem to lighten her mood at all. She was stuck between feeling pity for herself and a bitter hatred that came from her failed expectations for Okita.

"Damn it." She whispered with her mouth full of chocolate when a frustrated tear rolled down her face.

Her friends had warned her that it wasn't going to be easy, what with Okita's personality and the way reality was, but who said that a girl's feelings were just as simple?

She sighed and let out a loud, unladylike burp and leaned backwards on the fence, crumpling the package in her fingers and closing her eyes.

She didn't expect to fall asleep, but the physical and emotional fatigue weighing down on her made it easy to do so.

The bitter sweetness of the chocolate coated her mouth, but all she felt was the crushing turmoil of her own feelings as she murmured, "Stupid Okita…"

* * *

With his school bag over his shoulder and his eye mask in his right hand, Okita looked down at the sleeping girl.

"I've finally found you alone, and you're _asleep._ " he sighed as he lowered his bag and sat down next to her, his legs crossing over each other and put his face in a hand to stare at Kagura at a certain angle.

To say that he had known all along about everything – and especially, about her recent case with the chocolates and watching her try to give them to him was a given.

Despite what the girl might have thought of him and cursed him for being a dense blockhead (or so he heard from the way upstairs to the rooftop), he wasn't as stupid as to not notice anything about the girl he'd liked for a while.

But she hadn't known about it either, so he couldn't exactly blame her.

When he had gotten to school, he had actually been waiting for her to give him something – a punch, a candy, some form of her usual, violent collaboration of emotion – and it had kept him on his toes the entire day.

Knowing her personality, he knew that she wouldn't have tried to give it to him outright, so he'd always waited for an opportunity for her to come up to him – heck, he even made the openings for her when he'd teased her with the usual routine, but she was too dense to notice either.

As a result, a day had passed. And he'd been fed up after a day's worth of waiting and had been looking for her to demand what he wanted from her directly.

But here she was, asleep without a care in the world, and also apparently eaten his chocolates, by the look of the empty package and the smudge of chocolate around her lips and on them.

He stared at her for a while, feeling incredulous at her ridiculously thick denseness and also finding that he was fond of that trait, since this was the China he fell for. He crept closer, taking off the ridiculous glasses on her face so that they wouldn't get in the way.

"Baka-China." He muttered, and leaning in to her face, pressed his lips to hers.

It might have been strange for him to be kissing an unconscious girl, but her mouth was soft and supple, and the taste of chocolate covered them like a sticky coating he couldn't get enough of. He flicked out his tongue to trace her lips, savoring the chocolate on them, and when she parted her lips to take a breath, he leaned in close again, both his hands cupping her face, but this time, going for the inside of her mouth.

As his lips moved against hers, he thoroughly tasted the inside of her mouth, relishing the taste of bitter sweet cacao and the sour tang of the sukonbu she always ate. His fingers were already moving on their own, one hand firmly holding her cheek and the other pressing into the back of her neck. He ignored the small gasp she made and pushed his tongue against hers, trying to draw more of her taste out.

It was only when he felt her body shudder and her hands come up to grab his face with that strength of hers that he knew she was awake.

At this point, all he could expect was her being extremely flustered, extremely angry, or turn into the tsundere she was sometimes and say a line that was Kugimiya Rie worthy.

He didn't expect her to be crying.

"O-oi, you-,"

She shoved him away from her, her hands coming up to cover her face as she got up quickly.

"What the hell do you think you're doing-aru?!" he had been shocked by the tears in her eyes, but the tone of her voice was the same as usual.

He answered, "I was just getting my share of the chocolate, since you obviously ate it all."

"Th-these—these are ones I—I made for myself-aru! They're-they're not… they're not…"

"Alright, alright, you can cut the crap, China. I know they were for me."

She snapped her head up, her blue eyes going fiery with irritation and anger. "What?!"

"I was waiting for you to hand them over, idiot, but you were too slow and too dumb to notice that I was. Honestly, even a guy like me has his limits for patience, you know."

"Too—you were too dumb to notice that these things are supposed to be delicately handled! What do you take a young lady's heart for?! And-and—wh-why would you do—do—that if you… if you don't even…" she was stuttering badly, her face red and her voice losing all of the usual bravado. Damn. Despite the situation, he couldn't help but think it was cute.

"Like I said, I was just getting the chocolates. And since I've properly accepted them, China, you should know what that means."

Silence fell as he saw her still, and blink rapidly, then stare at him. It stretched out for so long that it was irritating, and also as uncomfortable as hell.

He broke the silence, "Do I have to spell this out for you, idiot?"

She sounded indignant as she crumpled the remaining wrapping paper in her hand and threw it at him with a glare. "Please do, if you think I'm so dumb so as not to-,"

He tried to sound nonchalant when he said this, but was actually quite nervous and trying his best not to trip over his words or make his voice tremble. "Go out with me… Kagura."

* * *

The world froze. Kagura froze, blood pounding in her ears and her lips open without anything coming out of them. Had… had she heard him correctly?

"Oi, China, I ain't repeating it again. Do you want to go out with me or no-,"

"But—why would you-,"

She heard him slump forward on his knees with a huge sigh then glare up at her. "You're an idiot who can't read the mood here."

She huffed, crossing her arms. "Excuse me for not being able to with an extreme Sadist who can't seem to give me any proper reason as to why he'd suddenly declare an invitation of courtship-,"

"'Courtship'?" he echoed, sounding surprised as if he couldn't have imagined for her to use such a word.

"—when he's always been at odds with me for as long as I can remember? Last time I checked, you were not this wimpy, bratty – well, maybe not that, but – and a sadistic bastard who hated my guts. So why would-,"

Kagura was cut off when he walked forward and kissed her again. She was so shocked from the sensation of his lips on hers and the familiar taste of chocolate on his tongue that she could only blink and go red when he said, "If I really hated you, I wouldn't have done what I did, so get that through your head… China."

She broke free from his grasp and swung a fist at him, but couldn't stop the blush spreading on her face, and that bubbly giddiness building inside her. "You—Sadist…!"

He knew all too well what she was going to answer with. Dodging her punch, he stuck out his tongue at her and said, "A very happy Valentine's to you, too… girlfriend."

* * *

 **Hehehe... how was it? Should I add another sequel to it for White Day?**

 **See y'all in the next chapter... which is one about family and set in the regular Gintama World...**

 **Deathblow88-san, I haven't forgotten your request, I'm still working on it^^**


	4. Family

**Here's the next chapter... I'd originally titled this 'Family Rivalry' instead of just 'Family', because it was going to mainly evolve around Sougo and his son, but, well, yeah. It got longer and eventually centered on the entire family. Not as much fluff in here as I would have liked, but you tell me.**

 **So yeah. Please leave reivews and enjoy!**

 **Thank you to mi-chan, mitsuki, i love okikagu and lu89 who reviewed! I will be sure to write that sequel, then^^**

 **Disclaimer: Gintama is not mine**

* * *

Chapter 4: Family

"Pa—pa. Say 'Pa-pa'." Okita mouthed out loud to the squealing baby in his arms, a frown on his face.

"Mam…i. Mami!" the infant kept gurgling, his red-brown eyes turning to his mother who was busy folding clothes in the living room. "Mami… Mam…i… Mami-," the baby started to cry, his small, chubby hands and tiny fingers reaching for his mother.

"Oi, Souichirou, your father's over here, and yet you prefer that China-lady to me?" he muttered, trying not to drop the thrashing baby who was yelling and crying. He didn't like it when his son started crying like this, more so because he could never know what to do.

He called out to his wife in a panicked tone, "China, Souchirou's calling for you again."

"It's your hour to babysit, Sadist. Deal with it while I finish up the laundry and then we can switch for dinner." She called out, evidently unperturbed. Okita knew that it wasn't that she didn't care for their firstborn, but more so because it she didn't finish the chores now, she would end up shirking them as she fawned over the baby.

"Mami… mami… mami!" the baby kept calling out for his mother, refusing to stay in his father's arms.

It took only about another three seconds for Kagura to get up and come over to take the crying infant from her nervous husband and started rocking him.

"You little Souichirou, you little you…" she murmured in an affectionate tone, a smile breaking out on her face. Okita sighed, half relieved and half annoyed, his hands on his hips as he watched the mother-son pair gurgle at each other.

"How does he like you more than I do? I took as equal a part in making that kid. Just look at those eyes and that hair. It's all me." Okita muttered.

His wife answered him without even looking up, "I withstood nine and a half months of carrying him inside of me, took approximately twenty three hours in labor to get him into this world. Of course Souichirou's going to love me better. Isn't that right, little Souichirou?"

The baby only responded by laughing, "Mami!"

It was really the only thing he was able to say. Okita swore several times already that the baby was actually differentiating between him and Kagura, and refused to call him father or papi or papa because he favored his mother more.

"If you count all the times I took care of him so you could sleep, then I bet it would equal as much time…" he muttered. "Not to mention, you pretty much brought about the end of the world in Edo when you were in labor, and ate up the hospital's emergency supply of food when you were there… paying for all that makes me just as responsible for taking care of that child, China."

"But you knew all that was going to happen when you married me, so suck on that." She answered, still smiling brightly at her cooing infant who had a lock of her long vermillion hair in his tiny grasp.

Despite how annoying she was, she had a point.

Watching the two interact, Okita sighed in fondness. The picture of the woman he loved more than anyone in the world holding their irreplaceable son was one that he could never get tired of looking at.

Their little Souichirou (who was everything to them) was about eleven months old, a child that came early on in their marriage of one year. It was a marriage that had taken place after approximately seven years worth of quarreling that started since their early teenage years stretched to include rivalry and love-hate that somehow morphed into an actual relationship. Okita Sougo had been twenty four, and Kagura twenty when the two got married. There were tears on her family's side as they gave their only daughter to the worst sadist living on Earth, but more frozen smiles of fear as everyone congratulated the pair.

The two weren't famous for nothing, after all, if not their sadism. With the marriage of these two evil, and very sadistic geniuses of the next generation, it was like the end of the world for the Shinsengumi, Yorozuya, yakuza and those living in the shady underworld of Edo.

But, so far, nothing that disastrous had happened.

Well… if one didn't count parenthood, that is.

* * *

Three years later…

"Let go of Mami's hand, Sadist-Papi. I wanna hold her hand now." Demanded a three year old Souichirou, his small arms outstretched towards his parents, who were cuddling on the sofa in their bedroom. The little nickname was something that he'd learned from Kagura, who was often prone to calling Okita Sadist instead of using his name. And since their son loved his mother so much, the name had quickly stuck, and now Okita was being called 'Sadist-Papi' instead of just 'Papi'.

"You've had your turn an hour ago, Souichirou. And Mami's papi's wife, so don't you dare try and make your small little moves on her. You're a hundred years too early for something like that." Okita answered from behind a sleeping Kagura, both his hands intertwined with Kagura's as his arms were around her waist. He shooed his son away nonchalantly, but the small child refused to move, crossing his arms petulantly.

"But Mami loves _me_ too, so she's going to share holding hands with me, Sadist-Papi."

"But Mami loves _me_ more, so she's going to hold my hand for now, and yours later, Souichirou. It's time to play over there now, so go and play with your Hijikata voodoo doll."

The child held up a straw doll which was covered in needles with Hijikata's face and hair on it. "Hijikata Oji-chan's probably dead by now, Sadist-Papi, so I don't have any more toys to play with. I wanna hold Mami's hand!"

"Hijikata-san's not dead, Souichirou. I've already tried killing him for over a thousand times when I was younger, so you should just go and try again. Mami's hands are mine. And be quiet for now, Mami's sleeping."

"But I wanna hold Mami's hand…" Okita froze as his son started trembling and a big tear rolled down his face. "Uuuuhhh… Uwaaaahhhhh-!"

And there he went again. He had already gotten used to his son throwing a tantrum when he didn't get what he want (his mother spoiled him too much), so he could have gone without caring to placate him, if Kagura didn't stir.

"Oi, Sadist… what the hell are you doing, making our son cry?" with a bleary, sleep-lagged voice, Kagura spoke up, motioning her hand into a fist and smacking Okita's head.

"Ouch, damn it, you woman, I was just trying to make full use of our time-,"

"C'mere, Souichirou. Ignore Sadist-Papi who's being a prick." Kagura opened her eyes and held out her arms to her crying son, who sniffled and ran to her in a hug. Okita reluctantly scooted away to make room when he saw Souichirou…

Give him a wide, sadist smile, a container of fake eyedrops in his right hand.

 _'I win this time, Sadist-Papi.'_ He mouthed.

Okita's mouth almost— _almost_ —dropped open at his son's early genius which had been used to outsmart _him_ , out of all people, to win his wife's affection.

Sadist. Mode. On. _'My little boy… two can play at the same game._ '

* * *

The next morning…

"Good morning, Kagura." Okita walked right up to his wife who was setting out the plates and kissed her full on the mouth in front of Souichirou first thing in the morning. He was dressed in his Shinsengumi uniform and preparing to go out on patrol, as was usual on weekday mornings.

"Did you do something to the toilet again, Sadist? You don't usually act so sweet." His wife answered, her clear blue eyes narrowing in suspicion. But a small blush adorned her cheeks, implying that she didn't hate it.

"Is it so wrong to show my affection for my loving wife?"

She gave him a look. "Hm."

"Mami, Mami, I wanna give Mami a kiss too!" Souichirou jumped up in his seat and patted over to Kagura, who gave him a bright smile and leaned down.

"Of course." She held out her cheek to him, but he pouted and said, "I wanna kiss Mami's mouth too."

Okita got up and pulled his son into the air by the lapels of his kimono, raising an eyebrow. "Kissing Mami's mouth is a privilege only for me, you brat. Go find a girlfriend of your own in ten years and do it, if you really want to."

"Sadist-Papi's mean." Souichirou mumbled, looking back to his mother for help, pleading with his puppy eyes. "Mami, can't I?"

Looking torn between her husband and her cute little son, Kagura said, "Well, Papi's right this time around, Souichirou. You can still give Mami a kiss on the cheek, though."

"No… it's okay, Mami." The three year old shook his head and pulled on Okita's sleeve to put him down on the ground.

Okita didn't miss the glare his son gave him and smirked back.

Round two of the Battle of Sadists was over. The next one was about to begin.

* * *

The following evening…

"Mami, Mami, I got an ouchie on my finger!" Souichirou wailed, pointing his bleeding hand to his mother, who had been busy chewing on sukonbu whilst watching the TV.

"What happened, Souichirou?" Kagura quickly got up and picked up her son to put on her lap and inspected his finger, which was bleeding.

"I was cutting sukonbu and my finger got an ouchie." He said, whimpering.

"I see. Wait… why were you messing with the knife, Souichirou?"

"Well… Mami likes sukonbu, so I wanted to give Mami more… was… that bad?" Souichirou flashed his best puppy face at his mother, who broke into a wide smile and pulled him into her arms, kissing his forehead.

"But Mami cares for Souichirou more, so don't touch the knife ever again, alright?"

Souichirou wiggled out of her embrace and perked up, asking, "Ne, Mami, Mami, who do you love more, then? Papi or me?"

"Eh…? Souchirou, what kind of a question is-,"

"Of course it's me, Souichirou." Okita's voice interrupted them, and he strode inside the living room, dragging something in a large bag behind him.

"Sougo, you're early today. Did something-,"

"I made Yamazaki do the paperwork instead of me today. I had something to do… at home, so…" he shrugged and pulled around the large bag and opened it.

Kagura gave out a gasp as she saw the mounds of sukonbu spill forth. Looking up at her husband, she narrowed her eyes again in suspicion. The two men in her family were acting rather out of behavior today by being extra sweet… were they hiding something from her?

At her scrutinizing gaze, Okita shrugged and came around to kiss her forehead. "Happy non-birthday, China."

He pointed a triumphant glare at his son, who glared back just as ferociously, his eyes growing into slits.

Round Three was over.

But for how long was this going to continue?

* * *

Due to the father and son's similar stubborn natures, neither one was willing to back down for the next weeks to come.

And Kagura… well, she was basking in each of her husband's and son's affections and thoroughly enjoying their attention ("Like the Queen of Kabuki-Cho I should be treated as."). But she wasn't entirely blind to what was going on between them either.

After all, it was the first few weeks that passed since he didn't tie her up on the bedpost with leather ropes, or hog all the covers and make her roll around on the ground at night or tried to sprinkle her food with Tabasco sauce. He was acting more civil than usual, not to mention… except during the times when she caught him exchanging those sadistic glares she knew of too well with their son.

So the evening when she put Souichirou to bed and climbed back into her own bed where Okita was waiting for her, she voiced her concerns to her husband.

"It's not my fault that brat doesn't understand that you're mine…" he mumbled into the pillow.

She wanted to burst out laughing when she saw him reduced to being as childish as their son. It was a fairly foreign side to Okita she'd never seen before and it was really cute to watch.

" _Who's_ whose, Sadist? I, the Queen of Kabuki-cho and the heroine of this story, does not belong to _anyone,"_ she tapped on his nose as she leaned in close to directly stare into Okita's red-brown eyes. "Except, perhaps… to a very troublesome pair of sadists who don't quite understand that I'm happier with them being friendly with each other than trying to spoil me to death. It was enough that Papi and Bakamui were always fighting over me since Mami died. I don't need you and Souichirou to do the same stupid thing either."

He hmphed and wrapped his arms around her, drawing her close to him and pulled the covers over them.

"Ne, Sadist. Zura called me the other day, you know, to warn me beforehand about a new branch of Joi extremists." She felt his body tense against hers but continued, "Apparently they're a small branch that used to be a part of Takasugi's group, but there was an internal struggle and they broke off. Zura told me to be careful, but I really think it was meant for yo-,"

"Who do you think I am, China. I'm not going to go down just because of a few Joi extremists. It's my job to deal with those rats."

"But, Zura-,"

"I don't want to hear another man's name on your lips right now," she shuddered as she felt his hands rove down her back and reach way below to finger the edge of her nightgown. "Unless it's mine."

It was right before he could tug off the nightgown when she sniffed his neck and said, "You also stink, Sadist. Did you take a shower last night after you came back? I heard from Gorilla that you had a hard time with the recent rogue samurai and overworked yourself."

"I'm fine, if that's what you're asking."

"I'm ordering you to go and take a shower. I refuse to *bleep* with you if you can't even take care of your own personal hygiene."

"You're one to talk, China. Did I ever complain when you forgot to flush the toilet when you're ovulating?"

She hit his head in response, but it did make him shuffle along on his feet to the bathroom, a spare towel in his hand.

"Oi Sadist."

"What?" he asked her grumpily, his face annoyed.

"Do you want me to join you?"

Kagura patted herself on the back mentally as she knew the fact that their son was asleep and didn't have to hear what ensued next in the night.

* * *

The next morning…

Just before Okita was able to go out the door to go to work, he called out to his son and pulled him aside in his room. Souichirou glared at his father but followed him, curiosity filling him as to why.

"Souichirou, I'm going to give you a very important task from now on."

"Do I have to steal Gin-chan Oji-chan's strawberry milk and put Hijikata Oji-chan's mayonnaise in it again?"

"No. Those old guys are already in your father's hands, so you don't need to do anything. All I need you to do… is stay by your mother and protect her in my stead when I'm gone."

Souichirou's sandy brown eyebrows wrinkled in confusion. "But Mami's as strong as you, Papi. She doesn't need me to-,"

"Every woman needs to be protected by the man—I mean, people she loves. And you love Mami, don't you, Souichirou?"

The little three year old nodded.

"Then all you need to do is stay by her when I'm not here. And if, Souichirou, Papi's never here… one day, then I need you to protect her in my place. Alright?"

"Does that mean I can get married to Mami when I grow up?"

He knocked the boy's head with a fist, though it was more of an affectionate gesture. "Mami's my wife, you brat. You can always find a bride of your own when you grow up, though."

Rubbing his head, Souichirou whined out loud how it hurt and tried to knock over his father, who laughed as his son started hanging on his jacket like a small koala. After hearing Kagura talk about her own family and realizing that this family of theirs was just as important…

Okita had to make sure that all was well for their future. For both his wife and his son as a husband… and as a father.

* * *

Four days later…

"Mami…?" Souichirou rubbed his sleep-weary eyes and looked up at his mother, who had been pacing up and down the living room, her umbrella in her hand. Her long hair was down from its usual hairdo, and by the looks of her dress, she hadn't changed at all from yesterday.

Souichirou hadn't seen his mother act like this ever when his father was gone.

Yesterday, when he'd been picked up from the Yorozuya where his uncle Gintoki was as his mother got off from work, he'd noticed the tense mood within the place and the anxiety in his mother's face as she talked to uncle Kondou.

He couldn't hear exactly what they were talking about, as he had no interest in adult conversations, but it had to be related to his father.

Because for the first time in Souichirou's life, his father was missing.

He hadn't noticed his father's absence at all, and didn't care, because at the moment it meant that he had his beloved mother to himself, but after a while of being coddled and having those moments to himself, he'd realized that… it just wasn't fun without his father around.

He liked being coddled, but… it somehow didn't feel right without his father being next to his mother and playing with him as well.

And in the morning, he'd seen his mother's shaking hands and her dark face as she clutched the telephone receiver.

She was making a strange expression that made Souichirou's hands squeeze together in worry.

He didn't like this. He didn't like this at all. He didn't like his mother acting so… sad.

His mother should always be laughing and smiling or chewing on her sukonbu as she took care of him.

She should be laughing along with him and… his father, all three of them together.

*Brrrring*

At the sound of the phone ringing, he watched his mother dive for it and pick it up, her face anxious.

"Gorilla? Yeah… and…? No-," her face paled as she slammed down the phone and swiveled around to face Souichirou. "Souichirou, Mami has to go somewhere right now, so would you mind staying at Gin-chan's place-,"

"No!" Souichirou shouted with all his might, even making Kagura's eyes widen in surprise. "I… I made a promise with Papi to protect Mami… so… I'm going, too!"

He clenched his tiny fists to stare at his mother stubbornly. He saw her blue eyes glaze with emotion as she opened her arms, motioning him to come with her.

"You're already a man, aren't you, my little Souichirou? Sougo… taught you well."

Souichirou wanted to start crying at the sound of his mother's grieved voice, but held it in because he had promised his father to be a man and protect his mother.

* * *

"No… no, this… this is impossible… how… how did… how did Sougo-," Kagura stammered, shock overwhelming her. A silly laugh bubbled out from her lips as she saw the broken blade before her.

"I have nothing to say, Madam Okita… it was all my fault. If Okita-taichou hadn't been defending me, he would have…" Kamiyama, one of the soldiers in Okita's first troop, had his head bowed to the ground before Kagura, covered in bandages.

She couldn't tell him to get up, only repeated emotionlessly, "How…"

"There were too many of them, and they had us completely surrounded. Someone must have leaked our location, so they were ready for us when they set the trap." Answered someone else in the room, but she could barely hear him speak as her hands shook on her lap.

This was ridiculous. When she'd picked up the phone to answer Hijikata's curt call that told her they must've found Okita, she hadn't expected for this to happen. She and Souichirou had arrived at the Shinsengumi compound within minutes, and Hijikata had led her and her son to the meeting room where a group of them were gathered around something in the middle of the room.

Kondou and Hijikata both had grim expressions, and no one was able to meet her eyes as she stepped inside and saw what it was they had in the middle of the room.

It was Okita's broken katana, covered with blood and looking rusty. Half of the katana's hilt was burnt off, and what remained of the metal looked rusty, worn down and covered with dried cracks of blood.

"It was the only thing we could find." She could barely register the mayora's hand on her shoulder as she lifted the broken blade into her hand – as shock, grief and anger welled up inside her like a huge tsunami.

Sure, she'd always known that danger was always lurking around for Okita and her when they got together, and that his job would require bloody baths and killing. She was prepared for that and knew it very well.

She'd always known that Okita was not one to ever go down by a mere human's hand. He was strong and skilled, smart…

But he was also just another human being who was not invincible.

"A- what about a body…? What about his body—without it, this means nothing, you-,"

"There was an explosion succeeding the fight, Madam. A large pyre went up and on for nights, and we were only able to find… this. Whatever that was left of… Okita-taichou… must have…"

No.

 _"Oi, China, look at this, I got it for you-," before he could even finish and fish out the bag of leather ropes for bondage use, she threw a frying pan at his head_.

No…

 _"You shouldn't be so violent with your husband, you know. What kind of a wife would that make you?"_

 _"And you shouldn't be so sadistic with your loving wife whom you begged to marry for about a year. What kind of a husband would that make you?"_

 _He sighed. "Would another yearly supply of sukonbu be enough?"_

 _She laughed, squealed and jumped into his arms, delighted with the proposition._

 _"Sukonbu solves everything, huh." She heard him mutter._

 _"Not always. It's only because it's from you that makes it better."_

 _She could practically feel him smile as he returned her tight, Yato-strengthened hug._

No—this couldn't be—

She remembered every time he called out to her, whether it was just to tease her…

 _"China."_

Whether he had been sober or drunk…

 _"Yo China-,"_

Whether he had been playful…

 _"China~,"_

Whether the situation evolved around life-or-death…

 _"China!"_

And whether he was always telling her he loved her…

 _"Kagura."_

Okita Sougo… was…

"No… no, no, this can't be…" she could hear herself saying.

 _But it is… so, what are you going to do… Kagura?_ She couldn't decide whether it was her own thoughts coming into place, or someone else's voice that whispered to her…

 _Kill them._

 _Killthemkillthemkillthemall—killkillkillkillkill!_

She heard something snap at the back of her head, and her mind went blank.

* * *

"Stop her! Damn it, everyone-,"

"Get the little one out of here _now!_ "

Everyone was shouting, and their loud, panicked, fearful voices sounded foreign to Souichirou as he was suddenly pulled away from the fray and away from his mother, who had suddenly gotten up and ran outside, her umbrella in her right hand and his father's broken blade in her left.

He didn't understand. What had happened…?

"Souichirou, you can't move from here, you hear me? Don't move from this room – not even a single inch!" Souichirou stared up into Kondou's worried, panic-stricken face and frowned. He didn't like this situation at all. He didn't want to be alone in this big wide room all alone.

"Where… did Mami go?"

"China-san… she—she… we'll go bring her back, so stay here with Yamazaki, alright?" Kondou closed the screen door and ran out, clutching his katana and rounding up the second troop of soldiers in the courtyard.

Something was wrong. He knew that something was wrong here. Why were all the Shinsengumi uncles trying to go after his mother after she tried to leave?

And why didn't his mother try to bring him with her?

"Papi…" the call for his father fell like a silent plea in the air, and he clenched his fists and hopped off the porch after opening the door, eyeing the katana hanging in the room. "I have to stop Mami. I have to protect Mami… that's what Souichirou promised to Papi…" he mumbled to himself, and grabbing the large, heavy weapon and hoisting it as best as he could, the little boy ran across the courtyard and turned to follow the noisy sirens.

"Oiiii—Souichirou-kun, where are you trying to go?"

Souichirou turned his head and saw a familiar silver-haired middle-aged man on a scooter with his helmet on. "Gin-chan Oji-chan!"

"Hop on kid, I'm going to give you a driving lesson."

"What kind of a driving lesson are you trying to give this kid, Gin-san?!"

"Ah, Megane Oji-chan is here too ("Who are you calling a Megane?!"). Are you going to get Mami?" Souichirou asked as he was lifted into the air and placed on the glasses' lap.

His silver haired uncle answered, " _You_ are."

* * *

"Damn, it can't be that far… knowing her, she has to be-," an explosion succeeded Gintoki's sentence, and the three of them veered along the road, heading for where the ruckus was.

The Yorozuya had been called by Hijikata, who'd told them to take care of Souichirou back at the compound, but Souichirou had been… about to go after the Shinsengumi. _Technically speaking_ , the two of them were helping and taking care of Souichirou properly, so that covered taking care of him. And Hijikata hadn't mentioned that they couldn't step out or anything, so _technically speaking_ , they weren't breaking any rules.

The scooter stopped at the edge of the large police formation and parked near a broken building.

"Did… Kagura-chan lose to her blood again…?" Shinpachi asked in worry and fear as he saw the demolished buildings around them. They were running towards the center, where they could hear large explosions go off every few minutes and the clanging of swords.

"Something tells me that this isn't _just_ her going on a rampage, Pattsuan." Gintoki said grimly, taking out his bokuto and carrying Souichirou in his left arm. Shinpachi took out his own katana, which was at his hilt and got into a defensive position.

Three shadows of foreign samurai appeared and lunged at them, and fell to the ground when Gintoki swung his weapon and dislodged their faces.

"These samurai are…" Shinpachi started.

"Rogue samurai. Probably Joi from the more extreme organization. That damn Takasugi…" Gintoki muttered as he continued to run and defend him and the boy stuck in his grasp.

"Gin-chan Oji-chan, I wanna go to Mami. I havfta… protect Mami!"

"Hold your horses, you. We're all going to your Mami, but you're going to have to follow uncle's instructions carefully, alright?" Gintoki strengthed his hold on the squirming boy, and he frowned. "Don't start a fight on your own, little man. When you see your mother, all you're going to do is-,"

He was cut off when another explosion went off from nearby.

"Surround her and take her down with the tranquilizers! Do not kill her, but injure if you have to!"

"Be on guar-aaaahhhh-!"

Shinpachi quickly covered Souichirou's eyes before he could see what was going on in front of him.

A battle was going on before them. Most of the Shinsengumi were locked in duels with rogue samurai, and the rest of them were concentrating on trying to bring down Kagura, who was covered in blood and fighting without any restraints, her face twisted into a bloodthirsty smile.

"Gin-san, Kagura-chan is-,"

"At this rate… she'll end up killing herself just to follow that stupid Sadist prince and avenge him." Gintoki muttered.

"Mami?" The boy in Gintoki's arms wiggled like a worm and slipped out, plopping to the ground and started running towards his mother.

"Damn it, Souichirou-!"

"Souichirou-kun, no!" Shinpachi reached for him, but he was already gone from their sight. Now surrounded by new enemies, what remained of the Yorozuya wrapped their fingers around their own weapons and hoped that the little child would reach his mother in time.

* * *

Souichirou watched as three men tried to bring down his mother with their weights, but she shook them off like they each weighed nothing and shot at their limbs, drawing blood.

He winced when he saw the bright red blood splurt from the wounds and shuddered when he saw his mother turned to him like a zombie with that eerie smile on her face.

He wanted to stop moving and run on his heels, but he stayed rooted to the ground. Sweat ran down his face as the woman spotted him and fought her way across dozens of men trying to fight her. He was scared.

This wasn't his mother.

But he had made a promise to his father to protect his mother. He had to do this and bring his mother back. He was the only one his mother had left now, after all.

"Souichirou-kun, what are you doing here-," a few of the Shinsengumi soldiers had spotted him and surrounded him, trying to protect him from his mother. None of them lasted and fell to the ground.

His lips were trembling as he spoke up softly. "M-Mami… Mami…"

He saw her pause for a minute, tilting her head like a broken doll to stare at him from a distance away.

"Papi told me to… protect you while he was gone… so… Mami… come back…"

He wanted to run away as he saw her sway and stab into samurai who lunged at her with his arms raised.

"Mami… Mami… let's go back… okay? We can have sukonbu… and ice cream when we watch TV… and… have Papi put the spicy sauce in your bowl… and… laugh… together…" with every word that passed his lips, tears welled up inside him as he thought of all the good times he had with his parents.

"So… Mami… let's go… back…" water ran down his face, but he kept his ground and kept talking to his mother. "Stop… this and let's go back… Mami…"

He couldn't move when her shadow covered him whole, and her arm raised with his father's broken blade in her hand.

"Mami…" he whispered, fear filling him entirely. "Mami…"

He shut his eyes and shouted for his father as his mother brought down her arm in a flash.

* * *

Souichirou opened his eyes, one by one, and he saw the red drops fall from a stream down a bloody arm. He looked up at the person who'd stopped his mother and gasped.

"Damn it, China, if you wanted me here then you should've told me instead of going off and trying to kill yourself. Such an attention hog." The person's arm was trembling to keep the blade from going in any further into his arm, and his other limb was grabbing a hold of his mother's grip on the broken blade.

There was only one person in the entire world capable of stopping his mother like that. "Papi!"

"Souichirou, you did a good job protecting your mother while I was gone…" his father said, his face turned and showing him a small, worn out smile. "But you can leave things to me now, so why don't you leave the katana there and-,"

"I-I'm going to stay here and help Mami."

He heard his father sigh heavily, though he did sound a little strained. "I swear, you get that stubborn streak from China."

His father picked up the katana from Souichirou's arms and quickly jumped back, unsheathing it. "If you're going to stay here, then don't get involved and just watch, Souichirou. This might get a little heavy to watch, though. And, China, if you wanted to educate our kid in such a way, then you should've just told me to ship him off to your brother and learn a thing or two."

And Souichirou watched as his father and mother engaged in the fight of their lives.

* * *

He had fought Kagura in serious fights before, but this was on a whole different level.

Because they were more or less equally matched, both inhumanly fast blurs as their weapons clashed and dust was kicked up into the air. He was careful to block Kagura's moves and strong enough to defend himself, but he couldn't hurt his wife, even if she was in a crazed position where she lost all of her good sanity. Or was it that she'd lost that sanity long ago already?

He didn't know when it stopped, but the Shinsengumi had suppressed the rebel forces and were on standby with their swords raised around his fight.

He had survived the last big clash between the Shinsengumi and the Joi forces by getting away and setting off that bomb, but wasn't able to come into contact with any of the Shinsengumi because all his contact devices were broken and he didn't want to risk getting found out.

When he'd narrowly avoided death and managed to come back, he'd been shocked to find that no one was in the compound. After figuring out what had happened when he saw what was left of his old katana, he rushed over to where the chaos was occurring.

And that, was when he'd seen his wife going on a rampage, and his son there, trying to stop her.

It wasn't hard to figure out what had happened. They all thought that he had died, and when they'd relayed this news to Kagura, she'd snapped and gone off, trying to seek revenge.

That had brought the entire Shinsengumi on alert, but also raised the alarm from what remained of the Joi rebels, and on the way, had joined in the fight.

If this situation was just as easy as just cutting down rogue samurai, he would have been pretty pleased.

But no, it had to be a fight with his wife, of all people.

It wasn't going to be easy. And more so since she wasn't in her right mind.

Okita winced as her umbrella grazed his shoulder, drawing bright red blood, and cursed when she tripped him with her feet. He got up as quickly as he could and blocked her weapon with the katana.

"China—damn it… can't you hear me? I know you're inside there somewhere," he called out to her, his eyes desperately seeking for the woman he loved within the killer right now. "You shouldn't be doing this. You can't be doing this to me, or to Souichirou. I know you're stronger than this—so wake up!"

His katana clashed with her umbrella, and he felt her grip waver on her umbrella, her eyes widening to bring back her usual pupils. But that dead stare stayed the same.

"Kagura, you have to come back to me. Souichirou is waiting for you. _I'm_ waiting for you. Everyone else is—kch-!" Okita clenched his teeth at the pain when Kagura kicked his side and he went flying into the air, smacking into a nearby wooden post. The katana went spiraling from his grip and landed on the ground far from him. Being without a weapon in a fight meant sure death.

He lifted his red eyes and saw her cerulean ones gleaming as she jumped after him.

" _Kagura!_ "

" _Mami!_ "

* * *

Water mixed with blood trickled down Kagura's face as she blinked, staring down at the face of the man she loved… and almost killed.

Her umbrella was lodged in the wreckage of the building right behind Okita, but by the looks of it, she had managed to recover her conscious and narrowly avoided skewering her husband's face.

"S… Sougo…?" she whispered, almost unable to believe that he was right there in front of her eyes.

He gave her a pained grin and said, "You're such a bad wife, China. Beating up on your husband the first thing he come back?"

It was really him.

Relief, shame, and a complex mix of pure adoration arose in her and came out as tears, and she collapsed in front of him, her legs giving out. And to everyone else's shock, she started to cry, her shoulders shaking.

"Damn it… you… stupid… Sadist…" she sobbed out, her fists hitting his chest and her head low.

He slid down and touched her shoulders, patting her head. "You… stupid Sadist… giving me a… the worst… fright… I almost killed you… you stupid, stupid Sadist…"

"Yeah, yeah." Okita patted her head and was about to hug her much to the relief of everyone else around them when a fist swung up and smacked straight into Okita's chin, knocking his head back.

"You *bleep*ing *bleep*!" Gintoki and Shinpachi stared in shock at her 180 degree turn in behavior, their jaws dropping. The men of the Shinsengumi had similar expressions, which obviously showed that they had expected to see a loving couple get back together and recover from the life-threatening situation… not her trying to attempt to kill (while in her right mind this time) her husband who'd just come back from the dead (?).

"Eh-?!" Okita clutched his wounded face and stared at his wife, who was towering over him with a dark expression and glowering eyes. "Damn it, that hurt—,"

"How the hell are you alive, anyway?! You put me to all this for *bleep*ing nothing, you know! I snapped for the second time in my life like this and almost killed—for—for—damn it, you…" she broke off as more tears ran down her face and she angrily wiped them from her bloodied face.

Okita stared at her for a moment, understanding why she was acting this way.

He got up, shaking the dust from his pants and walked to her, noting that his son had crept behind him.

"I'm sorry." He wrapped an arm around his wife's shoulder, bringing her close against him, and held his son in his other arm. "I'm sorry that I worried you."

"No matter how much… sukonbu you buy me this time… it's not going to cover for what you've done… you stupid Sougo…" she managed, her face still crunched up in a frowning sob.

"Yeah, yeah."

Souichirou made a sniffing sound before finally bursting out loud and crying next to his mother, "Papi…!"

Okita sighed as Kagura burrowed her face into his shoulder, and Souichirou did the same, and he held his family as they cried out of relief.

Despite being the one most grievously wounded and needing attention, he had to be the one giving that attention to the others. He sighed, then buried his face against his wife's hair and hugged her tight next to his son.

Well, he supposed that was what it meant to be a family, after all.

* * *

After the whole ordeal was done and over with, Okita was shipped off to the hospital along with his wife, his son and dozens of other Shinsengumi officers who had been hurt in the battle.

Hijikata and Gintoki, who had come out of the fight unscathed, were waiting in the hall outside of the patients' room, checking over the money promised. Kondou had gone to check up on Okita along with Kagura, and Shinpachi had gone off to get spare clothes for Kagura, being the tsukkomi brother he was.

"Oi, oi, Oni-no-fukuchou-san, this is way too little! What the hell happened to the—," Gintoki cried out, looking at the meager stack of bills in the envelope.

Hijikata replied, "You get a cut because you didn't carry out your job properly."

"Well, it's not as if you've ever paid us properly when we helped you out. Typical tax-robbers." Gintoki made a spitting sound towards him, but pocketed the money in his kimono.

"We didn't hire you to take care of Souichirou and bring him out to a battlefield, for crying out loud. If he had gotten hurt-," Hijikata interjected, his eyes sharpening to a glare.

The silver haired samurai said, picking his nose and flicking it at him. "Well, he didn't, technically. We were taking care of him the entire time."

"Sougo would have probably slaughtered us if-,"

"That actually goes the same for us, since Kagura-chan is so protective of her son and all. But really, this was all because of you, since you didn't keep a proper eye out for that Sofa-kun, which made our happy-go 'round mother Kagura-chan go Yato-crazy on a bull-eyed-,"

Gintoki was slammed into the nearest hospital wall as the topic at hand arrived, looking irritated. "Who went on a bull-eyed what?"

"Ah… Kagura-chan, you were… listening?" Gintoki managed to cough out, before falling forward in a dead faint, blood trickling down his forehead.

Hijikata looked down at the bleeding (almost) corpse, then back at the woman who did so. Kagura had changed from her bloodied clothes into a short red cheongsam with white pants. Her hair looked like it'd been washed, and was gathered into a wet ponytail that slung over her shoulder. It made him wonder how in the world she'd changed and washed in that chaotic mess in such a short amount of time, but women were quirky oddities when it came to fashion and hygiene, so he didn't bother to think any further on it.

"Oiiii—wasn' this a hospital?! What are you doing, knocking people out already?! We have enough patients here, Kagura-chan!" Shinpachi, who had just come into the hall carrying a bag of extra clothes for Kagura and the others rushed over, checking to see if his boss was alive.

"The stupid curly-head deserved it," Kagura muttered, and turned her gaze to Hijikata. "Technically speaking, you deserve the same thing, too, but since you're taking care of the hospital and damage fees, I'll let you go."

Hijikata wanted to tell her that it was all her fault, but refrained from doing so, since he knew too well what would happen if he did. Well, there was that, but there was also that kind of sympathy that came from knowing what she went through when she thought she lost her loved one.

"How's Sougo?" he asked.

Kagura shrugged, motioning for him to follow. He did so wordlessly, and soon he realized that she had brought him to Okita's patient-room, where he had been moved to after a small surgery. Kondou was sitting in a chair and looking on at someone shielded behind the curtains around the bed in the middle of the room.

Getting up when he saw the two come inside, he gestured for Hijikata to be quiet.

"The two fell asleep just now."

"The two…?" he echoed, and when he pushed aside the small curtain, knew what Kagura was talking about.

On the bed lay Okita Sougo and his son, Souichirou, sleeping whilst snuggled together. Souichirou was on Okita's chest and sleeping soundly, having changed into a clean set of sleepwear, his small hands curled around Okita's patient kimono. Okita's right arm was bandaged and in a sling, but his left arm was supporting his son's body, while his hand rested on top of Souichirou's back.

Okita looked so fatherly in his position and his son looked so angelic together with him, that no one could deny that the two were clearly father and son.

"I thought the kid favored you, China-san," Kondou murmured, getting up and patting Hijikata's shoulder, motioning for them two get out to leave the Okita family room. "But it seems that a son can't deny his bond to his father."

Kagura gave out a small laugh as she pressed a kiss to Souchirou's forehead and to Okita's cheek. "Yep. These two are more alike than they know. Their fighting over me this entire time proves that, for sure-aru."

* * *

 **Hmm. Not sure if that was okay or not, but, meh. I tried to make it short, but it ended up being longer than I thought... hope y'all enjoyed it, though^.^**

 **The next chapter's about a first kiss, set in the Gintama 3Z world (again)... and Deathblow88-san, I'm still working on your story! The first half is almost done, so it's going to go up after the next chapter!**


	5. First Kiss

**Okay, so this one _is_ in the 3Z Universe, but it's not the sequel to Chapter 3: _Valentine_. I mean, it could be if you consider it, but I didn't write it to be a sequel. I'm going to write a White Day sequel for that one. So... yeah. Oh, and Kagura and Okita are each 16, 18 respectively in all my stories unless I say otherwise.**

 **I did write out this one, but I'm not sure how it turned out... the characters might have ended up becoming a little OOC... but read it before you hate it, please! /*o*/**

 **Well then, please enjoy and leave reviews!**

 **Thank you to all my readers who have left their usual encouraging reviews, and the rest of the viewers who've read my fan-fic^^ It means so much to me/ToT/**

 **Disclaimers: Gintama does not belong to me**

* * *

Chapter 5: First Kiss

Kagura was depressed.

It was unlike her to be in such a strange mood, and of all days on the week of her birthday (which was not her menstruation period, as a particular someone pointed out, only to be knocked out by her).

She was sulking with her spiral glasses on her face and sullenly looking out the window with her arms crossed, and everyone else could practically see the dark gloom coming from her.

After a while of conversing about what to do, a pretty older woman came to her with a cautious smile. "Kagura-chan, is something the matter?"

As if in slow motion, Kagura raised her head from her arms to look up at the older woman mechanically and replied, "Nothing's wrong, Anego."

"But you've been like this the entire day, Kagura-chan. You're not even eating your sukonbu. Did something happen with-,"

"Oi China, what are you doing?" a voice turned everyone's attention towards the door, where a young man stood with a bag hoisted on his shoulder and a red eye mask on his forehead. "I'd been waiting forever, you know."

Judging by Kagura's dark mood escalating even further, Otae, Shinpachi, Sarutobi and the rest of her classmates noted that it had something to do with her boyfriend, Okita Sougo.

"Whatever, Sadist. You're supposed to wait for a lady." Kagura muttered, but picked up her bag and headed towards him, mumbling a farewell to her other friends.

Watching the two leave, Otae murmured, "I wonder what's happened. It doesn't seem as if they fought…"

Her brother, the glasses boy answered, "It has something to do with Okita-san, though, doesn't it?"

"But those two are always bickering and fighting, so it can't be that serious." Hijikata commented as he too, prepared to leave.

"But to see Kagura-chan in such a state… I'm worried."

"If you are, Otae-san, you know you're always welcome to come into my arms and consult me on anythi-,"

The young woman punched the humanoid gorilla to the ground without even turning around and said, "I hope it's nothing too serious…"

* * *

Kagura bit her lip, her heart pounding and her fingers continuing to twiddling with the hem of her skirt. She was nervous. Well, which girl wouldn't be, especially since…

Since her boyfriend brought up the topic about _that_?

It had really been any other day when the two were out on another snack stop on the way home (Okita's treat) in the sweets shop, and Kagura had been helping herself to the fiftieth cake slice when Okita, the sadistic bastard-who-had-somehow-become-her-boyfriend-but-was-more-like-a-living-wallet had stepped closer to her to lick off the cream from her face.

She had gone scarlet red and sputtered, "What-what the hell was that for-aru?!"

He had given her a smirk and replied that such a thing was normal between them, now that they were going out. He'd also hinted that other things – especially things like kissing was… expected.

Needless to say, Kagura had freaked out inside, since afterwards she saw things in a completely different fashion when it came to her boyfriend. Every touch he made, every word he said – they all seemed… extremely suggestive, now that she knew what was expected of her as his girlfriend.

It hadn't even been a year since they had gone out, and he already expected more? Well sure, they'd done hugging and the usual holding each other's hands thing and even cuddled on the sofa together from time to time. But to go beyond that… hm.

Her surrogate father, Ginpachi had told her that as Souichirou-kun ("It's Sougo, Gin-chan.") was just another teenage boy with natural physical urges, and since those urges were directed towards her, it would only be a given that he was going to expect some more physical contact. He warned her not to do anything that was beyond an M-rated storyline and an R-15 passage (to which she'd responded with, "This is why you can't ever land with Tsukky-aru in any story. Your mind's in the gutter far too often for Author-san to write about you, Gin-chan."), and especially not if she wasn't comfortable with making any moves.

Well… that was what Gin-chan had said, and what she thought of doing. But she couldn't help but feel as if… well, she _did_ want to respond. She really did like Okita as the person he was under all those sadistic and teasing layers, and wanted to be able to express her feelings to him openly and physically as a girlfriend should.

Kagura sighed as she spotted another high school couple kissing each other on a park bench, then averted her eyes as they parted. If it was one thing that was stopping her from doing anything with Okita… it was really that she-

"China." Kagura jumped at Okita's voice and turned to see him standing there with two warm canned drinks in his hands. "What were you doing?"

"Nothing." She accepted the warm cocoa in her hands with a mumbled thanks and he plopped down next to her on the park bench.

Kagura tried not to flinch as she felt his eyes rest on her and then at the subject of her eye contact and sipped her cocoa silently.

"China, do you want to go out somewhere this Saturday?"

Kagura's cerulean eyes flicked towards her boyfriend, who had the cup of coffee in between his lips, his gaze straight ahead. Saturday, was quite conveniently, her birthday, and a day when they didn't have to go to school… so that meant…

"You're taking me out… on a date?"

A date.

A date… with just the two of them, and on a very special day… and after he'd hinted that he did want to kiss her, and possibly do other things like -

"Oi, China. Your face is going red."

Kagura blinked as she saw Okita's face in front of her, close enough to lean in and touch her lips. She did the most natural thing that came to her first thing – she pushed him with all her strength, and he went flying across the park and crashed into the soft wet grass.

"The hell—what was that for?!" Okita cursed, glaring up at an extremely flustered Kagura.

With her cheeks bright red, she grabbed her bag, stomped over to where he was and said, "O-okay, then. See you tomorrow." And stomped off on home.

* * *

"EHHHH?!" the female students chorused around Kagura, their faces shocked.

"Not so loud-aru! What are you going to do if he hears?!"

Otae, Kyuubei, Sarutobi and Soyo all hushed immediately, giving her apologetic smiles.

"Sorry about that, Kagura-chan. I see… so Okita-san wants to take the next step with you, hm…" Soyo murmured thoughtfully.

"And you want to respond positively, but don't know how…" Otae added, her face too becoming thoughtful.

"Well, isn't that easy enough, Kagura-chan," Sarutobi said, flicking her purple hair over her shoulder and looking down at Kagura with a knowing look.

Kagura looked at her a little hopefully (if not doubtfully), and the older student said, "All you have to do is lead him on and engage in that SM stage where Gin-san and I are at, and he'd love -,"

"No one does that kind of *bleep* except you, you perverted *bleep*!" Otae exclaimed, cutting Sarutobi off with a kick to the otherworld. She turned back to Kagura, who was now huddled in the corner and looking every inch the naïve and inexperienced girl she was.

Otae glanced at the other girls and winked, and noticing what was about to take place, they all slipped on mischievous expressions and came back to crowd around Kagura.

"Kagura-chan, we're here for you, so depend on us! All you need to do…"

* * *

The day of the date

Kagura gulped, feeling a little self-conscious as she glanced at a clock on the pole nearby the city's downtown square, where she'd promised to meet Okita. It was almost time.

She'd followed her friends' instructions – er, advice – and managed to dress up well enough (or so she was told), and remembered each case by case action they told her to do.

She was dressed in a red floral sundress meant for the chilly fall that had peonies and fancy butterflies imprinted on it, and a warm cashmere cardigan of buttercups on her shoulders. She was wearing flats, and her hair was done so that half of it was up and in her usual hair adornment, and the rest fell around her shoulders in straight waves. Otae and Soyo had dressed her up and completed the look with a bit of light makeup, saying that it would bring out her feminine looks much more.

How Okita would take to it, was her main concern, but… Otae had told her that to take the next step, dressing up to set the mood was an important thing to do. And since she was turning seventeen, she might as well dress up to feel like an older, more grown up young lady. At least, that was what her Anego said.

"Kagura?"

She turned at the voice and was pleasantly shocked with Okita's rather surprised face. She watched him blink, then rub at his eyes, then look at her again. Did he not notice it was her because she was all prettied up?

"Huh. So you do manage to dress up nicely." Okay. That answered her self-conscious thought with a negative, and she visibly inflated, though he didn't seem to notice.

She wanted to hit him, but restrained herself, waiting for him to say something. He did give her a once look over with his dark red eyes, but he didn't say anything like she expected him to. Not even one insult in the place of a compliment either. All he did was stare down at her with a raised eyebrow, then turn away, making her feel a little disappointed. Technically speaking, this was the Sadist she was talking about, so she couldn't make it past him to compliment her at all.

She noted that he was a little more dressed up than usual as well, though it was really just an outfit consisting of a t-shirt (not the blue one with a giant S), black trousers and an actual suit jacket. He was wearing his usual sneakers, though.

But… did he dress up this way for her?

She startled when he grabbed her hand and started pulling her towards the other direction on the street, saying, "It's good to see that you're not late as usual… though that outfit of yours might be a little eye-catching and annoying for what I've planned today."

A vein popped in her forehead, and she grumbled to herself that this idiot was just the plain old bastard she knew he was, but she let herself be dragged along to wherever they were going.

Surprisingly enough, their first stop was at a bowling station. He'd apparently made reservations beforehand so they could play for as long as they wanted…

But she noticed that it wasn't exactly the most romantic place she'd imagined to spend a date or to have her first kiss.

She did enjoy their dueling together and beat him in three games straight, though.

Apparently, wearing a dress or dressing up in another outfit didn't change her arm for sports.

She was about to knock out the final row of pins with a 100-lbs. bowling ball when a finger tapped her shoulder. "An-Ano… Miss, I'm going to have to ask you to stop now."

She swiveled around at the voice with the heavy bowling ball in her hand, almost knocking the person over. "Oopsie-aru. You okay, mister?"

"What's the problem?" Okita walked over, eyeing the person on the ground with disdain. "I booked the -,"

"Well sir, that's not the problem, but it's just that… err… we have concerns as to whether you won't break the… the… bowling grounds… you see, your sister's strength-,"

"'Sister'?!" she exclaimed, her fingers twitching to throw the bowling ball at the man's head. If it wasn't bad enough that she got treated like a kid and was always brushed off as being a proper girlfriend when other *bleeps* were trying to hit on Okita – this man was ignoring her as a-

"-has already called to attention several other players' and we'd gotten complaints-," the man continued, apparently not noticing Kagura's bristling. She felt Okita's hand pat her head as he walked forward and past her to face the talking manager.

He slammed down a foot near the manager's head, earning a violent shudder from the poor man. "First off, this is my _girlfriend_ , you *bleep*. Get that right."

She looked at Okita in surprise, pleasure filling her at the thought of him defending her.

Okita continued, "And I clearly did earn the right to use this booth for the next hour as well, so you get that through your head. If you're choosing to kick us out right now, then I should expect that reimbursement for both my lost money, and the extra for hurting my feelings."

Kagura sighed as she watched the poor man scramble up, practically give Okita a salute and scamper off to find what was needed. "But I was winning again…" she grumbled, shooting him a glare. "Sadist, you didn't set this up so that you'd feel bad for losing face to me, no?"

"If I wanted to save face, then I wouldn't have been losing for the past few games, China," Okita answered, turning around to face her with his hands in his pockets. "Besides, he was an annoying prick who couldn't distinguish my-,"

She noticed that he stopped talking, then turned around to pick up his jacket from the chair. She wanted to rip his hair out for stopping. He was clearly going to call her his girlfriend, and had no problems saying it before, so why stop now?

 _"Kagura-chan, sometimes men are dense and don't notice a girl's subtle emotions. So all you have to do is to give him that gentle shove and then take the lead."_

'Alright, Anego, here goes nothing…' she tip toed forward before Okita could turn around and tugged on his t-shirt, and stood on her toes to get closer. The moment he turned around, she leaned forward like her friends taught her to and got into the kissing pose.

He didn't seem to particularly act out of hand, so she took that as the usual denseness coming from him and prepared to 'take the lead' by kissing him first. "S-Soug-,"

She leaned in closer with her eyes closed–

And felt herself being shoved aside and toppled into a chair as the manager from before came hurrying forward to wave a handful of bills and hand them to Okita.

She stared, aghast, as her boyfriend accepted them with ease, not even trying to mention how his girlfriend was pushed away in an important moment. She started fuming as the manager started apologizing and Okita merely stood there counting his bills.

After giving the clueless manager a hit that led him straight into unconsciousness, she angrily dragged out Okita from the place and to the nearest pastry shop, hating that bitterness of disappointment forming inside her.

* * *

In the pastry shop, Kagura stuffed her mouth full with the newest parfait delight, then sipped the tropical fruit juice with jellies, and bit into a fruit-cream-chocolate crepe to soothe her burning disappointment… and go to the next step her friends taught her.

It was going to make her die of embarrassment, but she had no other choice.

 _"If you want to grab his attention, then there's all kinds of things you can do during when you eat, Kagura-chan. First, there's the-,"_

Gritting her teeth to reaffirm her resolve, she scooped up a piece of cake, "Oi Sadist, say ahh."

"What?" he raised an eyebrow at her, obviously unmoved at her effort.

"Just shut up and say ah." She leaned the spoon further across the table with a firmer tone.

He was about to relent and open his mouth when she flicked the cake and cream into his face, splattering his nose, mouth and chin.

She gave a satisfied snort before coming around with a tissue in her shaking hand and said in a high-pitched voice, "Oh no, you've got it all over your face, Sou-chan~. I'll have to clean it up, since it can't be helped that you're such a messy eater."

 _"—I'm going to clean that off your face and get into a classically romantic move' move!"_

She leaned in close, about to lick off the cream from his face when she felt something splatter her eyes. She stood there for a moment, and remembered the tissue in her hand and wiped it off, looking down at Okita, who had a sadistically evil grin on his face. His own unused spoon, which had been full of his own vanilla parfait was empty.

She felt the wet liquid travel down her chin and coat her hair as she heard him say, "Ara ara, if you wanted the spoon-feeding thing to happen, you should have just _told_ me, _China_."

She wanted to hurl him across the café. She was really, really tempted to, regardless of whether he was her boyfriend or not. But she stamped down the urge because she had come all this way to fulfill her goal, and one slump wasn't going to stop her.

'Next try…' she thought to herself, sitting back down in her chair and wiping off the vanilla he flicked on her face.

"Sadist, I wanna try that cocoa latte with the extra cream." She ordered, and he waved the waitress around to carry out that demand. The waitress (who clearly had her eye on Okita and wouldn't stop fluttering her eyelashes or waving her hair in his direction) hurried over with their order, but put it in front of Okita instead.

 _"Milky cream leaves a mark on one's face when you drink it, so if you leave a milk moustache, he'll want to definitely lick it off."_

 _"Milk moustache…?" that sounded weird. She did hear about it when she watched the usual Asian TV dramas on Sundays, but to try it out in real life?_

 _"Of course! It's irresistible to guys, you know, not to mention – extremely cute."_

She was extremely dubious about this next approach, but she was determined to carry it out. She reached for the cup of cocoa latte when Okita picked it up and took a sip.

Well, okay. She was about to kick him when she noticed that there really was a frothy mustache made of the cream from the cup around his mouth. On a bishounen like Okita, it _was_ kind of cute to see (just like Otae had said), and she took a second just to stare at him.

Gathering her courage again, she was about to lean forward and make her move when that waitress from before came right around with a napkin and wiped it from his mouth, saying how he was a messy eater rather flirtatiously.

In front of _her_. His _girlfriend_.

Ugh. That was enough for her to slam down her spoon, pull the cooing hag from her boyfriend and stomp out with him in tow behind her.

To say that she was jealous would have been an understatement.

* * *

At their next few stops, Kagura found that something was going wrong here.

She was hindered next when they ran into her brother and his gang, who chased the young couple down the street until they ended up in a random cemetery (not exactly the best place to have a girl's first kiss, she decided, so she laid off her advances).

The next chance they got was in the park, where they were having a stroll, and she'd led them into a nice clearing where she was mustering up her courage again when they ran into Okita's friends Kondo and Hijikata, who pestered her with questions until she snapped and ran off with Okita.

As she pulled him away, she noticed that he gave a smug little grin to someone behind them and stopped to scan the area, but couldn't see anyone except the bodies of his friends sticking out from the fountain.

(And meanwhile, people stared at the human faucets bubbling away in the middle of the cracked fountain in the park, and they were soon led away by the police for destroying public property).

Then she'd tried to give Okita a surprise kiss and made him close his eyes and all when they were in a ferris wheel at a carnival in the next town when something happened and the vehicle stopped, then actually fell apart when they were at the bottom of their second round. Okita was too busy trying to save themselves to care, it seemed, and wasn't the least bit flustered when he opened his eyes to see Kagura's face up close to his… which, disappointed her again.

The technician blamed it on someone's mischief by tampering with the frame of the machine, but Kagura was too annoyed to care and forgot to collect the return fees, stomping off to their next destination.

In the aquarium, when she'd tried to inch closer and set the romantic mood again, someone had splashed water on her, and she was forced to get changed.

This was so unfair. It was like the world was literally against her making a move on her boyfriend. Heck, she didn't _need_ to go to all the effort to make a move on her boyfriend! This was ridiculous!

And she wasn't sure whether he was now willing to do anything with her at all. So far, he hadn't noticed any of her advances and had acted his usual sadistic self, much to her dismay, and hadn't made any moves on her.

Was she just not attractive enough or something? Had he already gotten tired of her so that he was going to dump her after spending her birthday with her?

Or had she just been too dense to notice that he wasn't interested and merely misinterpreted what he wanted from her?

While all these questions rolled around in her mind, she found that the two of them were out in some kind of balcony from the building of the aquarium they just visited, where they were able to look out on the entire town of Kabuki-cho at its prettiest time.

With her hand fisted around the bags that held her wet clothes, Kagura bit her lip, courage failing her again. No. if she stopped now, everything that she'd been doing would be for naught.

She looked over at Okita, who was lounging against the stone arches of the balcony railing and looking over at the sparkling city lights, gulping. Despite what her friends told her, she didn't have her pretty clothes or her girly confidence. All she had was herself to show him how she felt and how lucky she was to have him.

She stepped closer to him and said, "Ne, Sougo…"

Her breath was about to stop as she felt herself falling forward and getting into that pose again, closing her eyes shut, her hands curling into his shirt and pulling him down towards her.

 _*Click*_

* * *

"Huh… this one's the most interesting one so far. I should make this my cellphone background wallpaper…" Okita muttered as he zoomed in and out of the photo of Kagura, with her lips all puckered up and her expression ridiculously scrunched up. It was ugly, cute and tear-jerkingly funny.

He wanted to laugh out loud as he saw Kagura's face go red and then step back, her previously valiant audacity fading away and leaving a very confused, pissed off girlfriend. "W-What-? You bastard, what the hell are you-?!"

"This last one beats the one I took at the café when you were trying to get at me, China, with those cake-smeared lips of yours." Okita held out the pictures of Kagura's close-up kissy face that he'd secretly taken, and he burst out loud in raucous laughter as he saw her face go even redder and her hands ball into fists as she hit his chest with her bag.

"You Sadistic bastard!"

He stopped laughing when he felt the first drop fall from her face and onto his forearm. Her face was bowed as she continued to pound her hands against him, so he couldn't see but she was for sure, crying.

He didn't opt for her to be so teary-eyed, given that she was the feisty girl he'd always loved to tease, but she _was_ still a girl.

And as cute as he found her various expressions, her crying face was one he hated seeing.

"Oi China." He said, cupping her elbows and drawing her towards him, his voice immediately going soft. "Look at me."

"You should have cooperated even a little bit with me, you hardheaded ballsy testosterone-hormonal bastardic ass of a sadist." He heard her mumble, and bit back another wave of laughter. She was getting pretty creative with what she was calling him.

And damn if it wasn't cute.

"So you really were trying to kiss me all those times?" he couldn't stop the laughter seeping into his voice again as he questioned her, and Kagura's slumped form stiffened, then straightened rather stiffly.

Her face was dark when she gasped in outrage, "YOU KNEW THAT I WAS TRYING TO DO THAT AND PURPOSELY AVOIDED ME AND DIDN'T SAY ANYTHING EACH TIME I MADE A FOOL OF MYSEL-,"

He shrugged his shoulders, and right before he knew she was going to blow up in his face _and_ blow him off the face of the Earth, he stooped right in and slanted his mouth over hers.

He heard her cry of protest, but literally swallowed it as he relished the first kiss the two would have.

Due to the water show from before washing off what makeup she had on her face, he was able to properly feel her real, fresh and smooth skin on her face and savor her without the icky artificial scent of makeup invading his sense of smell and taste. One hand supported the back of her head while the other was pulling her close to him torso and in a firm, affectionate embrace.

Once he'd stopped her from saying anything, he found that she was enjoying the kiss as well as he was. Her small breathy sighs and moans, the frantic pulse of her heartbeat against his skin, as well as her body language pointed out that she wasn't angry anymore… and only encouraged him to kiss her deeper.

Parting for breath, Okita leaned his forehead against hers, grinning smugly. He was a little breathless himself as he asked her, "Did you get what you wanted, China?"

Even though she was frowning at him, he couldn't help but find her absolutely adorable with her cheeks reddened to a lovely pink, her lips also flushed with blood from their kiss, and her blue eyes narrowed, with water clinging to her long eyelashes.

She opened her mouth and muttered, "I knew you weren't that dumb as not to notice all my advances."

"Hmph. Of course, what do you take me for, Baka-China?"

"An extremely stupid sadistic brat who's played his girlfriend around the entire day for his own fun." She responded, and he chortled. If she really knew the motive behind why he pretended not to notice how she was trying to come on him, then she would have a field day and never let him… or her friends hear the end of it, for that matter.

"You would have to thank your friends for that, China."

"My frie—wait, Anego and Soyo-chan were in on this too?!"

"They're the ones who told me to dress like this." He said, tugging on his t-shirt in emphasis. "Right when I heard the gorilla mistress and the little princess suggest that I do it, I knew something was going on. So they were really the real reason behind your failures to hit on me, huh."

He didn't tell her that he thoroughly enjoyed all those failed attempts and kept her feeling like she failed because he enjoyed seeing her reactions, expressions and cute actions. It wasn't not because he was a sadist to the core (which he embraced wholeheartedly), but mainly because it had shown a side of Kagura he didn't see so much.

He knew that he had hit the mark when she turned pink again and took a tsundere defensive pose. "I can't believe you actually played along with their setting me up for this ridiculous farce of a-,"

Okita cut her off by pressing another kiss that silenced her noisy complaint for another blissfully beautiful few minutes. He didn't know about Kagura's opinion about their kisses, but he was enjoying the result of her efforts more than when she failed.

"Stop trying to distract me, you Sadistic Prince from Planet Sadist." She mumbled against his mouth. "This is serious, you know. My friends are going behind my back and teaming with each other and involving even you in their plans. I've just been – been swindled!"

"You got your wish anyway, China. You got your first kiss, and you have me, don't you? I don't think there's any need for busting in heads (Not that you haven't already today)."

"That sounds like something you would do."

"No, that's your area of expertise. _Mine_ is to blow them up. Happy 17th Birthday." As he leaned in to kiss her again, she gave out a little gasp and burst free of his grasp, as if realizing something horrifying.

"I forgot it was my birthday cuz' I was so busy trying to hit on you! Damn it, we didn't go shopping for a present, and I had you as a wallet the entire day! Ugh, I'm an idiot-," she was interrupted when his arms were suddenly around her neck, and she heard the clinking of a chain.

She looked down at the elegant silver chain around her throat and the locket that rested at the hollow of her collarbone with wide eyes. "This is…"

"It was better than getting a collar to show people that you're mine," Okita said, crossing his arms and giving her another look-over. He muttered, "Though it was seriously tempting to get that collar I saw in downtown… Maybe I should have gone for the spike-chained choker instead of listening to Aneue…"

She smacked his head, albeit playfully. "Now you're just being an ass."

He watched her with a small smile, a smile that grew even wider when she read out loud, "'Property of Okita Sougo, if found, please phone XXX-XXX-XXX'?! You seriously wrote it like a dog collar, you Sadist?!"

"If I was sweet to the core, I wouldn't be the Sadist you love. Besides, what fun would it be if I just wrote something like, 'I love you'?"

"Well, it would have helped…" she mumbled, and was met with another light, playful nip on her bottom lip.

His lips curved into a grin against hers as he kissed her softly again, "I didn't take you for a girly girl, China who got full on hearing cheesy stuff."

She flicked his forehead, smiling in that goofy way of hers as she stepped out of his reach and closed her fingers around her perfect birthday present. "Whatever. Thanks… Sougo."

She didn't tell him that _he_ was the better present when he gave her that kiss. He had enough of an ego, after all for what he did to her the entire day.

* * *

 _A bit of an Extra (just for the fluff)– the Date in Okita Sougo's P.O.V._

He knew something was going to be going down when Tokugawa Soyo, of all people, phoned him two hours before the date he'd planned.

"Dress nice, she said…" he muttered as he made his way across the street, his hands in his pocket. "Tsk. What a bother. It's not as if China's ever going to notice anyway, she doesn't care for this kinda…"

He trailed off when he saw a small group of guys huddled around some girl from far away, though it was too close to the place he'd proposed for him and Kagura to meet. His eyes narrowed in suspicion as they zeroed in on the person who was getting all the attention and froze.

"Kagura?" at his voice, the girl's head whipped up, and a grin appeared on that face.

He blinked again, taken aback this time at how pretty she looked (He did think that she was fine the way she was in whatever she wore, but this was different). But she didn't need to know what he thought, so he made a show of rubbing his eyes and lapsed into his usual demeanor of teasing her.

It worked. She never noticed that he was really just staring at her because he thought she was cute, but wrote him off as being the inconsiderate sadist he was. It eventually gave him the chances to take secret photos of her to save on his phone, though, so that was two birds with one stone.

At the bowling station, he'd really only been losing because he was getting distracted with how the pair were getting looks – looks that were directed at his girlfriend, and because he was too busy enjoying each time Kagura smiled when she scored another strike.

He was surprised again, when she called out his name for the first time and tried to kiss him, but decided that he wasn't going to let such a good chance to tease her disappear and pretended that he didn't notice for the rest of the day.

At that pastry shop, he wondered how she was going to make her next move and had waited (almost) expectantly while watching her eat the usual amount of sweets and pastries. When she'd told him to open his mouth as she held up that forkful of cake, he had only done so with some reluctance because he couldn't believe his luck.

Kagura never behaved sweetly – no, never behaved humanly to him on a date before. So he was just a little irritated and disappointed himself when she flicked the cake at his face instead of actually feeding him. When her voice changed to that sickeningly sweet tone he'd heard random girls used to hit on him, he knew that she must have been acting according to what to a _certain_ group of scheming females told her to do.

'So, you've turned to them for love advice instead, huh, China? Were you _that_ desperate to kiss me?' he mused to himself, and decided that he needed to teach her not to play with food.

Personally? Well, he had an extremely hard time trying not to respond to her efforts to come on him, but it was just a lot more interesting that way. And considering Kagura's personality, he knew that she wasn't going to give up after the first few tries.

But it was just a little _odd_ (after the 'coincidence' of meeting both his friends and Kagura's brother/gang) because it seemed to him too, that even without his help, the world was set on stopping Kagura from getting her first kiss.

'It can't be that God is upset and decided to interfere, since we're a match made in heaven…' he thought to himself, idly fingering the present for Kagura in his pocket.

After running away from the Yato-gang led by none other than his future brother-in-law, Okita had noticed a group of extremely eye-catching stalkers dressed in shades and funky costumes tailing them and realized that they were being sabotaged. On purpose.

His guess was that it was either a pack of females stalking him, or perhaps her friends trying to spy on them. But that didn't explain how both his friends and Kamui had showed up 'coincidentally' on their date.

That left… 'So it's Danna and the Bald-dad, hm.'

Kagura hadn't noticed at all, and there was really no need to say anything to her directly. He was enjoying himself too much. So unknown to her doing it at all, he made her fail in her attempts each time to draw out those stalkers and make her get rid of them.

Each time he was dragged off, Okita waved at the sorry remainders of the nosy old guys audacious enough to screw with their date, smirking evilly. Despite him respecting his silver-haired teacher, both he and Kagura's dad had deserved what they got for trying to get in between him and his girlfriend.

During the entire day, he'd kept fiddling with the small box in his pocket with his fingers and debating when to give it to her.

While it was funny and he was having a great time, this date was mainly about Kagura and celebrating her birth into this world. He was itching to hand the present over to her and watch her reaction. Would she be delighted with this rare gift or surprised or disgusted?

But the timing hadn't been right until he had his last laugh and their first kiss.

'I knew waiting for it was the right choice.'

He knew that it was going to be only the first of many birthdays and kisses they would have together.

As he accompanied her on the way home, Okita smiled down at Kagura and thought, 'Maybe next time, I'll try out a make-out session with tabasco.'

* * *

 **Yeah... so I ended up making this... cheesier(?) than I thought... I have no idea whether it turned out alright...**

 **So... please leave reviews and let me know?**

 **The next chapter is a response to the first request I got, so stay tuned~**


	6. Never Cry Wolf (Part I)

**PHew... I finally wrote this one out... this was a response to a request I got. The prompt was a Werewolf/Kagura x Trapper/Okita. And.. about the title - I know it's bad, but I couldn't think of any other one that sounded interesting...*cries out of exasperation***

 **I did try hard to get it right according to the prompt along with my writing style. Not sure about humor, but I did try to make it funny enough. It turned out okay... I suppose. Not that confident, but I hope you like it^^**

 **Thank you for your reviews, C.A.M.E.O.1 and Only-san and Rinfantasy-san, mi-chan, i love okikagu-san, lu89-san, mitsuki-san, guest-san and everyone else!**

 **Don't forget to leave reviews, and e** **njoy!**

 **Disclaimers: Gintama is not mine; and I do not mean to rip off any other people's works' title by using it for my chapter. So, title belongs to them if they used it^^**

* * *

Chapter 6: Never Cry Wolf (Part I)

"Did you hear about that new pack of wolves wandering in the forest nearby?"

"Yeah, I heard that ten of the best trappers got caught and eaten when they tried to catch them a few days ago…"

"I heard they're monsters, you know… there's no wolf that exists like them in this area…"

"Red fur and blue eyes… what kind of wolves exist like that?"

"But the mayor has a huge bounty on them… to whomever catches even one of them, there's a price of about three million as a reward!"

"Isn't that something… but that's just the same as a death sentence, isn't it? The money's just cheap bait…"

The young trapper silently nibbled on his breakfast in the corner of the restaurant, eyeing the whispering townsfolk. A large black bazooka was on his back, and three guns were holstered to his belt. Two twin wakizashi were at his right hip, and one long katana at his left hip. He was wearing a black trench coat with gold buttons, black trousers and a white button-up shirt with a black vest.

Despite what he wore and what kind of weapons were on him (at least, visibly), he had the kind of face that drew women's eyes on the street, fine blonde-brown hair, and a very easy-going, laid back stance and aura. Maybe it was the eye-patterned eye mask on his forehead that made him look like another regular teenager, or the normal way he ate his food.

But if a regular person took a look at his blood-brown eyes, they would flinch away as they saw the glimpse of something horrifying.

This trapper had the eyes of what one could call… an extreme, super sadist.

The door of the place swung open, and a tall, dark-haired man walked in, his gear and his clothes catching the attention of everyone. It was another trapper… and a very well known one in the area. Hw was known as the Oni-Fukuchou by some, and by others, a Mayonnaise extremist… better known as just Hijikata Toshiro, a straight-laced but dangerous man.

This trapper took one glance around the place and called out to the young trapper sitting in his corner, "Oi Sougo!"

Heads swiveled around, and the whispering began again like a flame spreading.

"Sougo… as in _that_ Okita Sougo?"

All the whispering wasn't unusual. Okita Sougo was another trapper who was infamous for his bloodthirsty, sadistic character despite being at the young age of nineteen. Pair that up with his brilliant tactics for trapping wolves and a skill with weapons that outsmarted anyone… well…

"There you go again, Hijikata-san, ruining another perfect afternoon. I can't even eat breakfast in peace now, can I?" Okita straightened up, licking his fingers of the leftover crumbs on them. Putting a few bills down onto the table, he grabbed his weapons and headed towards the door, walking straight past Hijikata.

A surprised Hijikata reached out for the younger man. "Sougo, Mitsuba-,"

"Don't go addressing my sister so familiarly, Hijikata-san. No matter how much you do like her, honestly. Some lines shouldn't be crossed at all." Okita said tonelessly, glimpsing at Hijikata's red face. The three of them had known each other since they were much younger, and as close as family could be, though Okita himself didn't consider Hijikata as such.

Hijikata sputtered, "That wasn't – wait, where are you going? Mitsuba said that you were going to-,"

Okita cut him off again and hurried on, walking towards the direction of the woods nearby and going up a trail. "Catch one of those rogue wolves? Yeah, I am."

"She was _worried_ , Sougo." Hijikata said, making him stop for just a moment before continuing on. "I've heard that these wolves aren't your regular kind of prey. Perhaps you're better off not-,"

"Gone there and done that. These wolves clearly haven't met their match yet." Okita answered smugly, coming close to a small custom made but rather nice looking cabin in the distance. He headed straight for the small shed in the back, grinning. "And besides, that three million is just enough to pay for Aneue's next medical fees. She's almost all better, Hijikata-san. But she needs more medicine and better food if she's going to fully recuperate."

Hijikata sighed, knowing that this was going to go nowhere. If it involved his sister, Okita wouldn't even care for anything else besides the means to make her happy and healthy. "I'm not going to let her go through burying another family member. Haven't you had enough of that either?"

"Well, sure. But who said I was going to go off and die?" Okita grinned evilly as he pulled off the giant cloth covering something huge. He stared with gleeful eyes at the new mechanism he completed a day ago.

Hijikata stared at the thing and muttered, "Oh, brother…"

"I don't suppose you would mind being a guinea pig for me, hm, Hijikata-san?"

"You wouldn't dare to, Sougo-,"

"Oh, but I would." Okita smiled, showing his teeth as he pulled on the lever of the machine.

Hijikata yelped and barely got out of the way as something huge and heavy burst out of the strange machine and hit another something huge to the ground just a few feet away from him, trapping it.

"You… you bastard, I thought you were aiming for me… damn it, Sougo, don't give me a scare like that!" Hijikata scrambled up, but cautiously eyed the thing Okita caught. He heard growls and yips and saw the flash of fur, and realized that it was a wolf.

"Please. I was hoping that I would get both you and that thing with this," Okita gave a small thump on the machine's back in a satisfied way, and shouldered his bazooka as he started to approach the squirming mass of fur and metal. "But lookie lookie. They do say speak of the devil as the thing pops out, but I didn't know that I was going to catch this thing so quickly. Today must be my lucky day."

"So you somehow drew it out on purpose? Sougo, did you use me as bait?!"

"Please get over it, Hijikata-san. If these wolves were as smart as the rumors, then I needed a proper plan to catch it successfully. Ah, but don't worry, since I'll be sure to share some of that reward money with you."

"You clobbering cheat of a-,"

Hijikata was interrupted with a large growl coming from the metal net.

"The thing's still going, huh." Okita muttered, standing there and looking down at it thoughtfully. "Maybe all that wasn't enough…"

"What wasn't?"

"Well… you see, I made this net out of cords of solid Titanium and Platinum and an extra few tons of heavy metal for weights so that it wouldn't escape. Most of those cords are also spiked with tiny nerve numbing needles on the edges which I coated with a sleeping drug powerful enough to knock out an elephant, and this thing's still as hyper as ever." Okita said very normally, as if talking about the weather to another person.

Hijikata shuddered as Okita listed out every ingredient/method he used in creating the new tormenting trap, relieved that he wasn't the prey under the net right now. "If your so called tranquilizers didn't work, then who's to say that another few doses will work properly?"

"Who knows. It's worth a try. Might differ whether it's a female or a male, though. Hijikata-san, would you help me out with that?" Okita lowered his bazooka and took out a gun from his belt holster and flicked off its safety.

As if sensing the danger nearby, the wolf started thrashing more furiously and opened its mouth to howl loudly. But before it could let out a single note, Okita thrust his boot out and kicked its jaw, shutting it. He flicked his gun in his hand and pulled back the trigger thrice. He wasn't being cruel about it – just clear-cut and professional.

Hijikata flinched inwardly as those marks hit true and the wolf started whimpering in pain, then start to calm down and descend into a deep sleep. For him, it wasn't really the fact that he liked putting down wolves and other canine breeds that threatened the town that he did the job as a trapper – he needed the money and a purpose for his skills.

He couldn't tell whether _Okita_ chose the particular job as a trapper because he liked it, though. Known as the sadist he was, it was probably the most likely, but watching him like this as he acted swiftly and precisely – almost mechanically – it was as if he were only doing so to avoid feeling anything else inside him.

"Fufu… so, this one's a female. Hm… this one might serve to be more useful as a toy on display rather than becoming just bounty money…"

Okay. Maybe Hijikata's previous thought was wrong.

Okita's face was darkly amused as he had already pulled of the net and boldly opened the wolf's hind legs to check its sex. His eyes were already glittering with ideas for ways to tame the poor new toy, and his lips were pulled back in a sinister smile.

Yeah. Maybe Hijikata was wrong after all. This was not the face of someone trying to not enjoy his work.

* * *

"Hn." Okita said with his face in his palm. A half eaten cherry chuubert was in between his lips, and he'd gotten changed into a simpler attire of just his trousers and a t-shirt, and fuzzy socks with the letter S.

He and Hijikata managed to drag the several tons worth of weight of the net and the wolf into his cabin right nearby after many hours, and pulled the unconscious wolf into a life-sized cage he'd been preparing. It was made from the same kind of metal as the net, but it was reinforced with electrical cords and taser tips programmed to emit electricity of about 400 bolts if even a tip of fur touched the bars.

He hadn't wanted to take any chances with his new catch, after all.

But this new catch, was apparently, really a 'catch' (for a wolf, that is). As he'd pulled the wolf along by its hind legs and put it in the cage and bolted it, he'd noticed a few things about this wolf that was different.

First, despite being a seemingly young wolf, its size was twice that of any wolf he'd seen.

And second, it was that it was strikingly beautiful compared to any wolf he'd seen. Sure, its teeth were much larger and sharp but didn't stink of any fresh meat; its claws bigger and longer – enough to bring down a whole man in an instant – and were glistening black. Its entire body was well honed and muscled, lean but strong when he pressed his fingers into its legs and its back.

But the most startling thing was that its fur was of a silky, vermillion-auburn that shifted colors like a flame in the light. He'd actually been tempted to chop some of it off and stuff it into a pillow for his sister, but thought otherwise, since the wolf might have been infected with some unknown parasite.

But seeing such fur and seeing that it was a female… it kind of reminded him of that small pup he'd come across when he was much younger. But it couldn't be, since that one died…

A small whimpering growl roused him from his thoughts. "Hoh, so you're awake already?"

He got up from his chair and walked over to where the beast was imprisoned and crouched down so that it was at eye level with it.

Now that he was actually looking into its conscious face, he saw that this wolf had huge cerulean blue eyes that glittered with hostility. But these weren't the eyes of an inhuman beast. There was something in those blue pools that reminded him of an antagonistic, immature adolescent… _human_ being cerebral enough to show emotion and logic.

And right now, it was telling him not to underestimate its strength.

The wolf's back was arched slightly, and those fine hairs were raised to tips. Its lips were pulled back into a deep snarl, showing sharp teeth and fangs.

"So you're not apparently happy with your new home." Okita murmured, smirking at it. "If you get too close to these bars, you're going to get zapped, so you shouldn't think of anything too drastic like trying to get out, mutt."

It growled at him in response, but did shy away from invisible electromagnetic bars.

He noted that somehow… this animal was intelligent enough to understand him. Interesting. "For a mutt, you seem to be smart enough."

The wolf bristled violently, baring its fangs even further.

"So you don't like that name either, huh."

It growled again, agreeing with his statement.

"I'm not going to have to call you a *bleep* now, am I?"

It growled even more fiercely.

"Yeah, didn't think so." He held out the half eaten chuubert and said, "You want some?"

It raised a forepaw, and Okita swore that it was holding up its middle finger to say, '*bleep" you'.

"I wasn't going to share anyway, so that's that."

The wolf lowered its paw and gave him a look that clearly said, 'Asshole.'

Okita wanted to laugh out loud. This was becoming more and more interesting. He didn't usual have so much fun with another catch (he usually gunned them down and those wolves ended up being comatose since the tranquilizers _worked_ ). He was almost sorry that he would have to sell this wolf off.

 _Knock, knock._

Speak of the devil.

"Oi Sougo, you there? Everyone else's here for the wolf."

Okita was about to walk over and open the door to his cabin when he saw the wolf suddenly hunch down, sniffing the air and crouching into a corner and letting out a low, almost imperceptible whimper under that growl.

And he could see that hint of fear under that layer of hatred.

The emotion was so human that it was shocking.

He didn't understand what came over him, but the moment Hijikata brought the other potential customers inside with weapons, he grabbed his katana, unsheathed it and threw it at the ground right before the closest person.

"Sorry about this sirs, but this wolf isn't for sale. No matter what Hijikata-san told you, this wolf isn't one of the hordes you're looking for." He said calmly. No one could have thought that this was the same guy who viciously threw the katana to ward them off.

The tallest man in the group who was another fellow trapper snapped, "What are you saying, that one clearly has all the characteristics listed for the wanted wolves! Hand it ove-,"

Okita moved faster than any of them could have thought and seized his bazooka, then fired at the men, blowing them away. Well, everyone except Hijikata, who had barely dodged it due to having adapted to avoid Okita's numerous, violent moves (on his life).

"What the hell, Sougo?! You just-,"

"Blew them away? Yeah, I did. I chose to keep this one as my pet instead of turning it— _her_ in. I'm leaving the clean up to you, Hijikata-san." Then he aimed his bazooka at Hijikata and fired again.

Once he saw that the intruders were gone, Okita turned back to the female wolf, who had been sitting in the cage with what he thought was a wolfy smirk on her face.

"Now… how shall I play with you first?"

 _That_ wiped the wolfy smile right off the wolf's furry visage.

* * *

The group of hunters, trappers and the mayor's men, all began groaning as they got up from where they were blown away. Half of them were literally sizzling and burnt, but all of them had that glint of hatred in their eyes for the young trapper who had thrown them out.

"That little bastard thinks he can do anything he wants just because he's made it big despite his age…" one trapper groaned, rubbing his head.

"But what are we going to do about that wolf? It doesn't seem like he's going to kill it…" another trapper said, examining his burnt clothes. He muttered, "Damn him and that bazooka… if I had one, why I would blow him to the end of the Earth…"

"That bastard? No, he's the kind of guy who's twisted enough to torture his prey before doing away with it."

One of the mayor's men cried out, "Then what about the money?! We all agreed that we would share it once he handed it over to us-,"

"But he's not going to give in so easily…"

"That is… unless we can somehow use him to haul in the bigger fish…" the tallest trapper smiled, baring his teeth in a hideous smirk.

* * *

Some time after all that…

It was in the late evening that Okita finally slumped back on the ground and stretched out next to the wolf, exhausted. His clothes were half ripped, disarrayed and covered in sweat and wolf fur. Small scratches also decorated his limbs, and his blonde-brown hair looked like it was rearranged so that half of it stuck out and dripped with drool, and the other half was matted horribly.

The wolf was in no better state, and she rolled around on her back, her long tongue lolling out as her chest heaved for breaths. Her gloriously colored fur was half cut and half unkempt as if someone had tried to cut it off with a razor, and the claws on one of her paws were trimmed down to a very badly blunted edge.

Around the two lay all kinds of weapons, toys and tools they'd been trying to use on each other.

It was just after Okita had decided to keep the she-wolf as a pet and train (tame) her in his sadistic way. He'd first tried fitting a collar on her, but she tried to bite his hand off with those huge teeth (through the bars).

Then he tried lassoing her into a collar, but she ended up playing tug a war with him instead (thankfully, it didn't happen while she was in the cage, but it was a game in which he lost horribly and ended up being dragged all over the cabin).

After that, he used dog treats as bait, but she only kicked the bowl away and peed on the floor as if in defiance (he was extremely tempted to force feed it by just shocking it into unconsciousness and putting the food down her throat, but he figured that would be too boring).

Okita had gotten fed up with trying to 'nicely' treat the wolf and whipped out his more extreme tools (used in SM situations).

Surprise, surprise when the wolf didn't submit to him so easily, and instead, parried with him on almost equal terms (Any more details beyond that would be disturbing).

But then again, this wolf wasn't human either, so he hadn't expected her to yield to him as easily.

After struggling with her for a period of three days (a time period that went by faster than he could have imagined), Okita had finally collapsed in a fit of exhaustion, and so did she.

"Oi, you." He called out, and the wolf rolled around to glimpse at him, irritation in her blue eyes. "Here." He threw an unwrapped long sausage in front of her and bit into another one for himself.

The wolf made a sound of curiosity and sniffed it.

"I didn't poison it. But I can't have you dying anyhow, so eat it." Okita said exasperatedly, and the wolf took a small nibble at its end then spat it out, snorting at him.

He stared at it in shock before shrugging, then rummaging in his pocket to take out a small red box. "Well, it's either that or this awful sukonbu stuff-,"

But before he could even finish, the wolf lunged at him, her jaws opening wide to close around the box. He was barely able to let go before she chomped on it, munching happily on the sour seaweed.

"A wolf that loves seafood over meat?" he muttered to himself, shuddering. He hated the god-awful stuff, but apparently she liked it. He watched the wolf as she continued to chomp on the sukonbu, swallow and turn to him with wide eyes and an open mouth, as if waiting for more.

"There's some over in that box-," as soon as he pointed it out, the she-wolf ran off into the corner of the cabin to poke her nose into a box that contained the packs of sukonbu and began eating with ease.

Okita gave another shudder as he heard the noisy slurps and munching, and was very grateful that he had his sausages at hand in a large supply.

Sure, he could cook like any decent chef, but he was usually always busy trapping wolves and other roaming canine beasts for the town's safety and never had the time. His sister was at the family house a few miles near his cabin, but he couldn't impose on her for food because of her condition.

That was why when his sister's illness got worse, he'd decided to take the job of a trapper and earn money for her recovery.

His separate cabin, his weapons, his current way of life was all for her convenience and sake. Of course, he did partly enjoy the job for its quirks of playing with new animals, but he never treated them cruelly (at least, not cruel to torture them beyond repair and healing), and the job had pretty good pay.

He was still deep in thought and chewing on his late dinner when the wolf lumbered over, its stomach looking rather full and plopped down next to him, already descending into a deep sleep.

It was no surprise, as the two had been at it for quite some time. She must have needed the time to rest.

In fact, it was time for him to sleep as well.

Getting up and feeling his muscles stretch in protest, Okita made his way to the wall where he flicked off the lights, and came back down to where the wolf was and sat down against its large body. He didn't think that it would mind after all, and he needed a good bed nearby (he was too tired to get to his bedroom and he couldn't take his chances of the wolf waking up before him and leaving).

Finding her fur to be a pretty cozy warmth and her body as an extremely comfortable pillow, Okita pulled his red eye mask over his eyes and started dozing off, cuddling against the sleeping canine.

The bright moonlight of the last full moon spilled through the window, covering the two in a silver blanket. Somewhere far away, a wolf's deep howl was heard.

* * *

"Uhnn…" it was cold on the ground where he was sleeping, and Okita unconsciously rolled over again, looking for that mound of fur. But what his hand was met with was the smooth skin – human skin – of someone in its place.

"Hnn…?" he murmured in confusion, and blinked as he sleepily tugged off his eye mask to peek at what it was. He blinked rapidly when he saw human limbs. His eye widened when he saw the vermillion hair that came down to the torso, covering it.

His mouth widened when he saw that there was a young _human_ girl in the place of the wolf he'd used as a pillow.

A young, _naked_ human girl, no less.

He stared at her for a moment and got up calmly, turning to rub his eyes and looking back at her again.

Yep. She was no illusion. She was real and breathing and very much… a real woman.

By that time though, he saw that her eyes had opened, revealing familiar striking cerulean blue eyes.

"Holy *bleep*." He muttered, something clicking in his mind. Then his face flushed as he remembered what he had done to her.

Ignorant of the man's confusion and revelation, the young woman got up from the ground rather elegantly, yawning before she looked down and saw what state she was in. She opened her mouth to say, "Crap. I changed overnight-aru, huh…"

"'aru'?" he echoed, and she snapped her eyes up to glare at him.

"What are you doing when a lady's inconvenienced-aru? Go and fetch a sheet or something-aru!"

He almost did do as he was told unconsciously, but halted right in his steps. Spinning around, he crouched down so he was at eye level with the stranger and grabbed her face.

"What are-," she protested vehemently, and tried to bite his fingers. He managed to elude that and bore deep into her eyes. There was no mistake about this.

"I don't think you have any right to complain… _wolfy_." He said, and saw her eyes widen a fraction before narrowing back in scorn. " _You're_ that same wolf from yesterday that I caught, aren't you?"

"I _have_ a name-aru, and it's Kagura, you Sadistic bastard." She growled back, baring her teeth. Then she brought her knee up to kick him in the balls with a sort of energy that felt like she'd been holding it in for a few days.

He went down like a rock, wincing.

Yep. This was undoubtedly that wolf from before.

When he was down on the ground and clutching his unmentionables which had been badly damaged, the girl – Kagura – got up elegantly on her legs, completely unconcerned with the writhing man on the floor.

"Damn you… stupid… brat…" he groaned out, trying to reach for her as she made her way to the door. She didn't pause at all, and pain mixed with irritation arose like a wave. When she began to turn the knob, he shouted, "At least put some clothes on, *bleep*!"

That made her stop, stomp back around just to step on his back, her heel crushing into his spine as she growled, "What did you call me, you filthy lowlife?"

"I called you a *bleep*. Or would you have preferred a *bleep*ing livestock of a sow instead?" he wheezed out, still very much incapacitated. He bit back another curse as she grinded her foot into his back. Trying to ignore that continual pain in his lower torso and his back, he managed to reach out a hand for his wakizashi which lay nearby. Or better yet, that whip which was even closer. If he had that, then he would deftly train this unmanageable, wild -

"Ack!" he cried out when a heavy body seated itself on his back. He glared up at the young woman, who had her arms crossed over her chest and glared back just as fiercely.

"Don't you even _think_ about it-aru." She snarled. "I withstood your stupidly inhuman sadistic antics for more than a day – you're never going to tame me or whatnot, so I suggest you give up already."

"You never know, you *bleep*. Since you're human right now – dunno how that happened—you're just as likely as to become as submissive as any other human woman I've come across."

"Shut it, you big fat *bleep*ing *bleep*, *bleep* of a *bleep*." She cursed at him, smacking the back of his head. They were very unladylike words to use.

"In this situation, I would ask whether you were raised by wolves, but since it seems that's the case, I can't say it." Okita muttered, still very much in pain and also very much crushed.

"You just did."

"*bleep* you."

"Right back atcha, you Sadist."

"Now that you actually have a mouth, it's apparent that you're just going to keep running off like that, huh."

"Shut up." She promptly jumped on his back, which solicited an 'oomph' from him. "Why did you yell at me to get dressed anyway-aru?"

"Wolf-girl. Raised by wolves and taught by them… tch." He muttered to himself, then spoke aloud to her. "You're human right now. How the heck do you think people will see you if you step right out like that? Humans don't walk around naked."

"But I'm not human-aru, so why do your laws apply to me?"

"If you don't want to get killed for being found out that you're not, that is."

The girl hmphed at him, but soon sneezed. Repeatedly. And started shivering. "Oi, you. If you're so cold, then why aren't you changing into your wolfy form or something? Winter's coming in pretty soon, so the temperature is dropping down. Especially in the morning."

"Shut up, Sadist. If you're so smart to know about my kind, then you should already know that we don't shift unless-," she stopped mid-sentence and sniffed the air. "Someone's coming-aru."

"What?! You – get off of me – if someone finds you here then-," he started struggling with a renewed vigor and stood straight up, almost knocking the girl from his back (the pain in his lower body had subsided just enough for him to do so). But she wrapped her legs around his torso and stuck to him like some deranged koala, refusing to let him stand.

"What the hell are you doing, you *bleep*?! If someone finds you here, you're obviously going to get-,"

"No way am I letting you turn around to see me like this! Gin-chan said to kill off anyone who saw me in this form, but since I obviously can't right now, I'm not letting you do _anything-aru_!" her response made him jerk in irritation, since her logic didn't make any sense and sounded like it came from a seven year old. On top of that, he couldn't ignore the fact that a (almost) fully grown woman (who was a wolf, still.) was clinging to his body in the most naively – intimate way possible. It was just enough for his baser instincts to flare up in response… which was – not. Good.

"Whatever, just get the hell off my back and go find some clothes to wear!" he growled, trying to pry off her super strong hold around his neck and torso _and_ keep his imagination under control. It was impossible to do.

"No! You just want to shove me inside the cage again and make me submit to your sadistic nature! Like hell I'm going to do what you want me to do-aru!" she snapped back, wrapping her limbs tighter around him like a python.

"Just cooperate already, you-," Okita kept twisting and continued to try and get her off of him but to no avail, and accidentally slipped on a half burnt out red candle on the ground, slipping.

He could feel himself falling backwards (where the weight was most concentrated in terms of mass) and cursed viciously for what he was going to do next. He quickly wrenched his body around so that he wouldn't end up crushing the ridiculous humanoid koala on his back.

The two of them landed on the ground in a thud, and Okita grimaced at the heavy girl on him who was pressing down on his unmentionables _again_ (though it wasn't' as bad as before, since she wasn't violent this time).

"Oi, baka-onna, get off me already." He demanded, spitting out a strand of long vermillion hair from his mouth. He couldn't help but inhale, catching a whiff of what smelled like the rich earth of the forest and an aromatic, flowery scent coming from _her_.

She didn't budge at his order. He pulled up a hand and shook her bare shoulders, snapping, "You're pressing down on my *bleep*, for crying out loud! Get off!"

"But if I do… you're going to end up locking me back up." He was a little taken aback at how scared she sounded at that moment, despite her former bravado. "I want to get out of this place already, and you're making it difficult. So until you promise that you won't kill me off when I leave or enslave me or whatever, I'm not budging." With that, she curled up on him and stayed there.

"You're trying to blackmail _me_. The wolf that I caught to be my *bleep* is *bleep*ing me around." He said pragmatically, sighing. "Go figure. How the hell did I end up in this situation…"

"Because you were trying to make me your pet instead of killing me off or selling me. Your responsibility, really."

"Don't just go off and say every little thing on your mind, brat."

"Who are you calling a brat? I have a properly grown body of a full-fledged woman, you know. I'm already grown up than you and since I'm a girl, even more mature."

"You're a brat if you're younger than me."

"You're the brat who can't even-,"

Because they were so busy bickering, they forgot all about the stranger who was making his way down to Okita's cabin with a grown woman in a wheelchair.

And that, was when the door swung open and Hijikata walked in, along with Okita's sister.

One look at the situation (Okita on the ground with a naked woman on top of him and various SM… _things_ scattered all around them) was enough to make Hijikata go pale and quickly wheel away the woman in the wheelchair beside him.

The door closed awkwardly and Hijikata was heard saying, "Mitsuba, I don't think Sougo's here right now. Maybe we should come back an hour or so later when _everything's tidied up_?"

That last part was evidently for Okita's sake. The young woman answered something in a low, melodic voice that was unheard.

"Damn it, that *bleep*ing Hijikata… way to screw things up as usual…" Okita muttered under his breath, and Kagura sniffed the air.

"He smells weird. That lady beside him smells okay."

"'That lady', you _sow_ ("Sow?!" she exclaimed angrily.) – is my older sister."

"What?! But she doesn't smell anything like you!" as if to prove her point, she got up from him and sniffed his neck, her nose wrinkling in what looked like disgust. "You smell icky."

" _Whose_ fault do you think that is? Since she's here, I'm going to have to greet her, so _get off_ , please. I promise I won't kill you or put you in that cage already, so cooperate with me on this."

By the sudden change in his tone, Kagura stiffened, but reluctantly got off of him. Trying not to look at her uncovered form, Okita shifted around, found a random t-shirt that was big enough to cover her like a dress and threw it at her, busying himself with clearing up the mess they made.

Okita wondered what brought his sister along to where he was staying at. Was she alright? Did something happen with the housekeeper? Was someone harassing her because of him? Had she taken her medicine properly? Was she –

"Oi, Sadist." Kagura's voice drew him out of his concerns.

"What do you wan-," he stopped and blinked at the sight before him. Kagura was wearing the t-shirt upside down, with her legs going through the sleeves of the shirt and her holding up the edge of it up to cover her chest. Not to mention, the shirt itself was inside-out.

He sighed heavily, and she blushed, snapping, "What?!"

"As expected of a woman who's been raised by wolves. You're wearing it entirely wrong." He walked over to her after he put away the strewn things on the ground and picked up another shirt, demonstrating on how it was worn.

"Ohhhh." She let out a sound of understanding, and immediately pulled out of the t-shirt as he turned around for her to get dressed again.

A moment later, she called out, "Oi, Sadist, this thing's stuck."

"Huh? What are you-," he saw that she was indeed stuck, her head and arm both sticking out in the place where the head was supposed to go through. Sighing, he pulled the shirt over so that her arm could get out and helped her finish wearing it. It was a lot like having to care for a child who knew nothing about wearing clothes by themselves, really.

Just then, the door opened again.

Hijikata was met with silence as he saw Okita (doing what seemed to be inappropriate to the woman, who was still very much… well, at least, _half_ naked in front of him), and he awkwardly closed the door again and said, "Mitsuba, I definitely don't think that was Sougo, you know? Maybe you heard wrong. Yep, that wasn't Sougo… Sougo wasn't with another woman doing this and that…"

"Are you sure, Toshiro-san? I'm sure I heard Sou-chan's voice…"

"Why does that stupid Hijikata always have to pick the worst timing to come in…" Okita strode over and yanked open the door with a bright smile on his face. "Aneue, I'm here! You didn't hear wrong at all."

"Sou-chan!" the woman in the wheel chair cried out delightedly, smiling broadly. She turned to the dark haired man beside her and said, "See, Toshiro-san, I knew I was right. I could never mistake Sou-chan's voice for another person's."

"Please come in and out of the cold, Aneue." Okita warmly said to his sister, pushing aside Hijikata and bring her wheelchair inside. He turned to the man who was about to step inside and said, "Hijikata-san can go and buy some groceries, please, and perhaps extra clothes."

"Wha-,"

"I'll explain later." Okita then promptly slammed the door in Hijikata's face and locked it.

"Oi, Sougooo!"

* * *

"Now then, Aneue, I apologize for the house being out of order, but-," Okita turned back to his sister, who was apparently busy chatting with the wolf-woman, who was sitting down in a chair as docile and lady-like as any other normal woman could be. What had brought _that_ on?

"Sou-chan, come over and introduce me to this cute lady here. Is she your friend?" Mitsuba waved to Okita, smiling broadly at the girl who was smirking at him behind her back.

"Er… she's…" how was he supposed to introduce her? Say, ' _Aneue, this is a wolf in a girl's skin (literally), who apparently changed overnight into a human girl and is also extremely violent and will try to bite your fingers off, so be careful. She's also the wolf I tried to trap to turn in for the bounty money to save your life, so can you not be so friendly with her?_ '

"I'm Kagura-aru."

Mitsuba tilted her head and said, "I see. Kaguraaru-san?"

He wanted to laugh at his sister's polite naiveté and added, "No, no, she's just Kagura. The 'aru' is a part of her… erm… dialect."

"I see! So you're a foreigner to these lands, Kagura-san?"

"No, not really. My pack has lived here for a while now, so-,"

The older woman looked confused. "Pack?"

Alarm rose in Okita, and he stepped forward, trying to warn Kagura not to say anything about what she was to his sister. "Oi, don't-,"

"It's what they call my family in foreign lands, I guess-aru. In other places, they call us rogues and wanderers."

Mitsuba nodded in understanding. "I see. So you're nomads."

"You could say that-aru." Kagura shot him a skeptically triumphant look that said, 'I'm not as dumb as you look by slipping up'.

"Why are you in a wheelchair, Mi-chan?"

"That's because I've had a weak body because of a sickness I bear, Kagura-san."

"Huh? You're sick-aru? You don't smell sick or look sick."

"Kagura- _san_ ," Okita called out in warning. He didn't need his sister to say anything else to this woman, who was obviously going to be a bad influence on her. "Aneue has to rest soon, so let's move on with the conversation. Something that's not going to be-,"

Before he could complete his sentence, a weary voice called out from the outside, "I'm back…"

"For once, you have good timing, Hijikata-san." Breathing out a sigh, Okita opened the door, and found Hijikata there…

Along with a few uninvited guests.

* * *

 **Dun, dun, dun~**

 **Deathblow88-san, was it to your liking?**

 **So yeah. I _was_ just going to make it a whole oneshot, but I kind of got stuck. Writer's block. Ick. So after I'm done overcoming that, I'll write out the next bit and upload it... er... update it. **


	7. Never Cry Wolf (Part II)

**Here we go. Writer's block is a pain... but I finally got over it. Huzzah, next part! I didn't realize how fun it would be to use this prompt at first, but as I continued to write the story out, it came to me pretty smoothly, and I had so much fun writing it... so I have Deathblow88-san to thank for this experience.**

 **Thank you for leaving reviews, everyone^^.**

 **And don't forget to review this time, etc... please...**

 **Disclaimers: Gintama is not mine**

* * *

Chapter 7: Never Cry Wolf (Part II)

Okita leaned against the frame of the doorway, glaring at the men beyond where Hijikata was.

"I thought you learned your lesson from last time. What do you want now?"

"That wolf you said you caught. Hand it over, as per the deal was from last time." the rivaling trappers snarled. Okita noticed that there were a few more hunters mixed with them. Hunters whom he knew by the looks of their wolf pelts and the large weaponry at their shoulders… hunters, who he knew with one glance, would not hesitate to kill if given the chance. Regardless of whether it was human or not.

"I have no obligation to do such a thing if I changed my mind. I'm busy at the moment, but you all can play with Hijikata-san, if you want. I suppose he'll make a better toy to lash out at, anyway." He was about to turn away and close the door when the clicking of a gun alerted him.

The tallest of them smirked. "I wonder if you'll still have such arrogance when we do _this_."

He wasn't fast enough to block the shot, and had only seen the man pull back the trigger of the gun…

… which was aimed at his sister.

He couldn't think. It was like the entire world had disappeared around him, and he could only hear the pounding of his heart in his eardrums and the dread, anger and worry freezing him in his tracks.

No… no, no – he couldn't lose his sister too –

" _NO_!" the shout did not belong to him but Hijikata, and the blood that splattered the floor did not belong to his sister, but at the girl collapsed at her feet and clutching her chest as crimson rivulets streamed down her fingers and soaked the shirt she was wearing.

"What the-," it sounded as if even the other trappers and hunters didn't expect for the presence of a third wheel to interrupt their fight.

"Who the hell is the *bleep*?"

"Who the hell are you calling a *bleep*, you bastard?!" even as she lay there bleeding, Kagura's snappy personality was the same.

Her lively voice seemed to bring him back to life. Watching the scene unfold before him, Okita snapped immediately out of his trance and seized his katanas.

Hjikata, who had run to Mitsuba and Kagura to help, looked up at Okita with serious eyes. "Sougo, the girl-,"

"Hijikata-san, I leave that *bleep* ("I told you not to call me that, Sadist!") and Aneue to you." With that, he walked forward into the crowd of hunters and trappers.

No one seemed to understand what had happened – Okita had only moved a single step into their midst with two hands on his katanas, and suddenly their weapons became broken pieces of metal, plastic and wood in their limbs. Some of them went down on their knees, howling as blood gushed from their newly made wounds.

The others looked up at Okita with foolishly fearless eyes and cowered at the dark, frigid sadistic gleam in those pools of red.

Pulling out a pair of black leather gloves from his back pocket, Okita swaggered towards the brunt of their group (which was mostly made up of the men who hadn't fainted from fright or were still standing with their wounds) with a smirk on his face.

It was the smirk of an absolute do-Sadist.

"I hope you *bleep*ing *bleep*s from *bleep* are ready to face the consequences of trying to kill Aneue," Okita tugged his gloves on and drew out an aluminum bat from his back and something that looked suspiciously like a taser whip from his other side. "I was just getting edgy, dealing with that stupid she-wolf *bleep* when you dropped in for me to test my new toys."

He lashed out his whip and the man closest to him went down like a ton of bricks, twitching from the extreme run of electricity running through his body.

"You… bastard… you'll pay for-," the man croaked out. The others were too taken aback to help and only stared at Okita in shock.

Okita hmmed, then stomped on the man's face, breaking his nose for good measure. "What a noisy guy. If only you had gone down like the quiet sack of *bleep* you are, then I wouldn't have needed to dirty my shoes," he sighed in mock exasperation. "Ahh, Aneue's going to scold me for ruining the carpet again."

The young trapper glared up at the rest and said, "You're going to wish you'd never even heard of me by the time I'm done. I hope you'll like your tours in Hell."

* * *

Hijikata didn't say anything as he slowly cut the shirt with a pair of medical scissors and opened the shirt. A hand came up to sharply hit him on his head when he did.

"What the *bleep* are you doing-aru?!"

"Hold still, I'm trying to treat your wound." He replied, when Mitsuba put a hand on his wrists and took the scissors from him.

"Toshiro-san, please, let me do it. Kagura-chan's a girl, after all."

"O-ou. Fine, then." He stepped back to let Mitsuba help out and watched her. Even if it involved such violent situations, she was always so calm.

"It's because I'm used to you and Sou-chan quarreling all the time." she quietly said, and Hijikata flushed guiltily at her smile, as if he had gotten caught.

"We don't quarrel."

"I know. You two get along marvelously, don't you?"

"We don't get along."

She gave a small giggle and asked Kagura if she was alright. The young girl said nothing in response but grit her teeth, looking rather pale.

Mitsuba frowned, looking worried. "Kagura-chan, I'm sorry if it hurts, but I'm going to have to pull out that bullet-,"

"It didn't get lodged in here-aru." Kagura replied, wincing as Mitsuba wet a cloth with some disinfectant and dabbed away at her wound. "It'll come out."

"Nothing's going to come out unless we _take_ it out-," Hijikata said before Mitsuba gasped softly. Hijikata was there, asking what was wrong. She pointed to the rather large wound right under Kagura's collarbone – but what she was pointing to made Hijikata twitch in surprise. What seemed to be the large bullet was slowly wiggling itself out of her body, and suddenly popped out. Both of their eyes went wide as Kagura's skin closed over the bullet wound and left no scar at all. It was like she wasn't even hurt in the first place.

Hijikata was the first to respond, narrowing his eyes and cautiously tugging back Mitsuba behind him.

"You're not human, are you…"

The three of them turned when the door to the cabin opened and Okita came in, blood specking his clothes and ripping off his black gloves with his teeth. One look at Hijikata who had Mitsuba behind his back almost protectively and glaring at Kagura gave Okita pretty much everything he needed to know.

He shut the door behind him and locked it with a silent click. "So, the cat's out of the bag."

"What are you – Sougo, explain this-,"

"Well, I suppose it would be more correct to say the wolf is out of the bag."

" _Wolf_? Don't tell me, this girl is that wolf you captured the other day-,"

"I'm surprised that you managed to deduce that from just a few hints, Hijikata-san. It took me a little longer to get when I first saw her in her human form."

"So that wasn't you trying to get fresh with another girl from the town but actually _her_?"

"Speaking of, I'm not supposed to leave any of you alive, now that you've seen that happen. You know too much already." Kagura interrupted, closing the cut t-shirt to her naked body and standing up on wobbly legs. She opened her mouth to show her sharp teeth, and her eyes glowed a neon blue.

The effect was startling and just a little frightening to see, if it had been anyone else. But Okita stepped forward rather naturally and smacked her forehead with a finger.

"If you really wanted to hurt me or Aneue, you would have done so already since I let you out of the cage." Okita said, looking unconcerned.

Kagura glared at him, but her face went back to normal. She crossed her arms over her chest and scoffed, "It's only because you've saved me the first time from those hunters that I'm letting you be. And I actually like Mi-chan enough that I'm telling you about me."

"Sougo! Explain this to us now." Hijikata snapped, his ice blue eyes going back and forth between Kagura and Okita, who were practically speaking all to themselves in their own little world.

Said Okita sighed as if he was treating a child he'd forgotten about and supplied an answer for him, "This, er… young lady, is a wolf. Apparently, she can take the shape of a wolf and a human."

"A werewolf." Mitsuba interjected, surprising Hijikata and her brother. She elaborated, "I've heard stories about them when I was a child. They were always keen on staying in these lands, or so I've heard. But… I thought all of you were wiped out when the trappers and hunters came into this area."

"Most of the wolves were killed, sure-aru. But not us. Papi, Gin-chan and Bakamui have kept us alive for a long time after Mami… was—was kwill-," The room suddenly tilted in front of her eyes, and she stumbled backwards, strength leaving her legs. She also found that she couldn't form her words coherently.

"Oi, baka-onna, are you-," Okita didn't have time to finish his sentence as he bounded forth to catch her before she smashed into the cage behind her.

"Shrrup, I'm fwine-,"

"Like hell you are," the sadist snapped, and put a hand to her forehead, "Damn it, was that bullet poisoned too? Great, as if it can't get good enough already…"

"Sougo, I hope you didn't kill off anyone yet if we need that antidote-,"

"Who do you think I am? But with the way things were, I doubt that they're going to be willing to get near me at all. If only we could find what kind of poison it was, we could just find another alternative antidote…" the sandy brown haired man frowned, continuing to contemplate on what he could do. But he realized that this wasn't exactly the right timing. He needed to take care of her as best he could until he thought of another solution.

"Hijikata-san, could you stay near Aneue while I take care of Kagura?"

Mitsuba's eyebrows raised just a centimeter as she stared at her brother. For him to act this way towards a person besides her was rather surprising. She hadn't seen him care for others so profoundly ever since he'd lost that young pup he'd befriended when he was a child…

"That's a given. I'll also drop by Yamazaki's and ask what he knows about this," Hijikata replied, holding up the bloody bullet in a hand and dropping it into a plastic bag and pocketed it. "Mitsuba, we should go for now."

The woman relented without any comments or any protest, much to his surprise. He pulled her wheelchair around to the door and took one last look at Okita, who had disappeared into his bedroom with the half conscious girl in his arms.

"Sou-chan's going to be fine. Kagura-chan, too, Toshiro-san." As if reading his mind, Mitsuba put a hand on his arm and gave a soft smile.

"We can only hope so." He opened the door and pushed her outside, following along. "I'm surprised you didn't say anything to him-," he stopped when he saw the shadow of a rather mischievous smile on her face. "You're planning something."

"I'm not." She said pragmatically. "I just know that those two are going to get along very well with each other so I'm not worried… I'm merely letting them have some more time alone to themselves. After all, Sou-chan's a man now, and he's going to need more than just the people around him to feel whole. It's about time a nice lady like Kagura-chan stepped into his life."

"You're hopeless in your attempts at matchmaking, as usual."

"Oh no, it's just that when it comes to Sou-chan that I can't resist."

"As expected of you Okita siblings. Neither of you can keep your thoughts off of each other for so long." He sounded almost exasperated, but Mitsuba knew better than anyone that he was only making a compliment about her and her brother in his own awkward way.

Mitsuba laughed softly as she was pushed forward towards the direction of her house by the man she loved. That was one other thing she needed to tell her brother, she supposed.

The day had been full of surprises, but it was probably better for everyone to not reveal all of them in the same day.

* * *

 _"C'mere… I'm not going to hurt you. See?" the boy gestured to the small wolf pup growling fiercely under the bushes. A trail of blood led to the pup, showing the boy that it was hurt badly, but the wolf refused to come out, too scared to do so._

 _But the boy refused to move from his space and refused to give up. It was the first time he had ever seen a wolf pup up so close and wanted to be its friend._

 _"C'mon, I just want to help. You're hurt, right?" the boy continued to coax the wolf into coming out into the light. It had just turned to be one in the afternoon, and he had been sitting there for about three hours already and hoping it would come out._

 _Both of them were too stubborn to do what the either of them wanted._

 _Just then, a group of kids from the town came up to the little boy and started pestering him. They were the town's bullies who liked to pick on outcasts and anomalies who didn't join in their group._

 _"Oi, you murderer, what do you have there?"_

 _"Look, it's a wolf!"_

 _"Stupid, it's just some stray dog. What are you doing here, trying to befriend a stray dog 'cuz you have no one to play with? That's why you should've joined us while you had the chance."_

 _The boy stared at the others levelly, saying nothing. It wasn't that he was scared or didn't know what to say, but more that he didn't care. He could withstand listening to them talk for days and blabber, and it would mean nothing to him._

 _"What are you staring at, you munchkin?" one of the boys raised a fist and tried to strike him, but the boy dodged and tripped him instead._

 _Then he stomped on the bully on the ground, sneering. "Don't forget your places, little *bleep*s. kids like you should crawl on the ground and beg for mercy because I'm not going to show any."_

 _The other children stiffened at the tone of the boy's voice and started to back away. But then, one of them jumped forward and stuck out a stick towards the bush, where the young wolf was. A howl echoed from the place to show them that he had found his mark._

 _"Hah! How would you like it if your little friend got hurt? Now who has to beg for mercy, huh?"_

 _The boy stopped stomping on the tall one under him and lunged at the perpetrator, his teeth clenched in anger._

 _No matter how hard the boy fought against the bigger bullies, he ended up on the ground fending for himself._

 _"You're nothing, and yet you dared to raise a hand against us, huh? You and that sister of yours! You don't even have any parents and you're not even rich!"_

 _"What are you worth?!"_

 _Under all those insults, the boy refused to submit to them. He continued to fight against them with what he could, despite being extremely outnumbered and vulnerable._

 _The group hadn't heard the small growls coming from under the bush, and no one had seen the small red-auburn wolf come out from under it and run at one of the boys, sinking its teeth into the boy's leg._

 _"Gyaaah!" the boy screamed, drawing their attention. He tried to shake the wolf pup off and even hit it, but the wolf refused to yield. "Lemme go, lemme go!"_

 _Once the boy was in tears and screaming for help, did the wolf finally release its teeth on him and stood on its legs in front of the boy on the ground. Its fur was on its end and its teeth drenched with blood._

 _It dared the others to continue to hurt the boy, but the group of bullies turned and ran for it, crying._

 _Once their shadows disappeared into the distance, the boy who was bleeding on the ground stood up, spitting out a mouthful of red. He walked over to the wolf and called out to it, before the small pup collapsed, apparently exhausted and hurt._

 _The boy picked it up in alarm, coldness filling him, but when he felt the small pup's heartbeat which was strong against his arm, he ran all the way home._

 _"Aneue, Aneue!"_

 _"What is it, S-, oh my, what happened?" his older sister, who was in a pretty pink kimono hurried out of the house in shock at her brother's state. Worry creased her features, and she noticed what had happened for him to be so urgent._

 _"This wolf got hurt! We need to treat it or it's going to die!"_

 _"Alright, come inside."_

 _The boy refused to get treated until he saw that his new friend was cared for. Only after his sister had gotten a vet from the town to touch up on the wolf's wounds did he relax and let his sister disinfect his scrapes and bruises._

 _His sister didn't ask how he got hurt or why he was holding a wolf pup, only smiled when she saw that her brother had made the friend he always wanted to have._

 _"Do you think it's awake, Aneue?"_

 _"Hmm, I suppose it's safe to say it's a 'she', since it-,"_

 _"Oh, it's a she?" the boy made a face, then shrugged at this revelation. "Aneue, she can stay here until she heals, right? Right, right?"_

 _His sister laughed. "Of course. You musnt' get too rowdy though, since I've heard that the wolf hunters are at large at these parts nowadays."_

 _"Okay!" he answered enthusiastically, glee and zeal filling him. He had found a new friend to play with. The boy would make sure to keep his friend safe. His new friend…_

* * *

"Nnn…" Okita mumbled, slowly stirring from his dreams... no, his memories. It had been such a long time since he'd thought of that wolf pup. Why did it have to be now, of all times?

He rubbed his eyes to see that it was morning already. He had spent the rest of yesterday and the following evening to take care of Kagura, and must have fallen asleep during that time…

Speaking of… he looked up to find the girl sleeping against his pillows, her breaths gentle and rhythmical. She looked better, at least, even though she was poisoned. He had changed her from the bloody t-shirt to another comfy t-shirt he put on her (without peeking at her body), and arranged her so that she was lying in his bed.

She looked like she was just sleeping. No one would have guessed that she had been shot or poisoned just one night ago. Was it because she was a werewolf that she was more sturdy? A regular human wouldn't have survived it, after all.

He got up from his position, wincing as his muscles and bones stretched loudly to see how she was doing. He put a hand on her forehead and sighed in relief to himself. Her fever had gone down. Some color had gone back into her cheeks, and she was already murmuring in her sleep.

"More sukonbu… no, I don't wanna have… the sausage…"

"Back to normal already…" he stood there next to her, his shadow eclipsing her form, lost in thought. "If she was alive, she would've probably been your age by now, I suppose." He murmured. He would never have thought that he would be saying or feeling this, but… he did miss her.

She had been his first friend, but a part of his past. When he had gotten into being a trapper, he had done it mostly for his sister and because he needed the job, but also because a tiny part of him wanted to see for himself if she was really dead. With every wolf he caught, that meant more money for his sister, but he would always be hoping that he could somehow see her again in another wolf's form and just imagine that she was alive.

It was a stupid thought to have, but that was how he had thought, once. As he grew into an adult, however, he'd ignored all such whims and frivolous thoughts and concentrated on his sister only.

But seeing this Kagura had brought those memories back.

"Who's 'she'?"

He startled to see Kagura staring up at him in curiosity, her body shifting around to get up into a sitting position.

"No one. I see you're not dead yet, huh."

"What did you expect, I'm a werewolf-aru. We're much stronger than you humans or regular wolves. It's going to take more than just a poisoned bullet to kill me."

"So maybe I should have just left you to die, huh, since you heal and are much sturdier?"

"Typical Sadist. Bastard." She cursed at him, and yawned. "I'm hungry-aru. Do you have anything to eat?"

"Typical *bleep*." He cursed in reply, but threw her another few boxes of her seemingly favorite sukonbu. "You're getting rid of all that for me, so I can't complain."

He quickly ducked her kick and stepped back. "Don't call me that-aru! Geez, I thought you learned your lesson already!"

He frowned and stepped forward to jump on the bed and pin her down against the sheets. "And I thought you learned your lesson of not messing with your goshujin-,"

"'Goshujin', my ass-aru!" she struggled against him while under him, her face turning red. "GET OFF OF ME!"

"Like HELL I am until you've learned your lesson to not mess-," despite his voice sounding like he was irritated, he couldn't help but feel the stark curves of her body against his as he was on top of her. And it was extremely distracting.

Well, distracting enough so that he couldn't have defended himself from what she was going to do next.

" _Ow_! Damn it, you wolf-woman-," Okita cursed as he felt her knee come up and kick his privates. Again. "Do you _have_ to keep doing that?!"

He immediately went stiff and dropped onto the bed (and on her, coincidentally). She squealed in what was like horror and surprise, trying to shove him off of her.

"Stop thrashing, you're making it worse-!" he wheezed out as every move she made under him only exacerbated his pain down there.

"No way! I'm getting raaaaped-! Gin-chan, Papi _health me_ -," every limb she thrust out to shove him off made the pain worse, and his irritation was rising steadily until he snapped.

"You got me in this state, so take some pity and stay still until I recover, _Kagura_!"

His hostile tone and loud voice immediately shut her up and made her still under him.

He sighed in relief and stayed there on top of her until some of the hurt subsided. "If it was going to get you to be quiet, maybe I should have yelled at you first thing in-,"

Okita stopped when he raised his face and saw her glaring at him with what seemed like tears in her eyes. "O-oi, you-,"

She only fiercely glared at him and whispered, "You didn't have to yell at me."

Then she curled into a ball on the bed and stayed there, silent. The descending tension in the room suddenly made him feel unbearably uncomfortable, and just the tiniest bit of guilt crept into his insides.

If he thought about it, he really did put her in as just an uncomfortable situation as well. He didn't think that having a full grown man on top of you while you had only just recovered from getting poisoned to be a pleasant experience. More so if you were a younger person… er… _girl_.

He let out a full blown sigh, running his fingers through his hair. What would his sister tell him to do in such a situation?

'Apologize, probably. But how the hell and why the hell should I if it was her fault in the first place?' he thought to himself. _'Because you don't want to hurt someone you care about, that's why.'_

Okita blinked at that snide voice whispering to him at the back of his head. Care? He cared about this incorrigible, annoying, immature, thorn-in-the-side, good for nothing brat? He startled when he heard sniffling sounds and something like that of a choked sob.

Damn it. He'd never seen his sister cry before, but he'd made other women cry plenty enough when he shot down their expectations for a date or made him submit to his sadism. And he knew from experience that women cried for what seemed like an endless amount of time.

And having to deal with a half naked werewolf woman crying endlessly in his cabin sounded annoying, if not unnerving. So that meant he should hurry up and placate her with at least an apology.

"Oi, you." He called out. She didn't turn around, just continued to make those sobbing noises, her shoulders shaking imperceptibly.

"I'm talking to you, so listen-," he was cut off when she let out another low sobbing moan. He bit the inside of his cheeks in frustration, and it took all he had not to hurl another SM toy at her head. She was being ridiculous.

'No, _you're_ being ridiculous. Apologizing isn't that difficult, so get on with it.' He silently scolded himself and he crawled back on the bed, towards her on all fours. The bed creaked under his added weight, but she didn't turn around.

Okita raised a hand to touch her shoulder softly, then murmured, "I'm sorry, okay?"

She had been still shaking when he suddenly felt a kick to his abdomen and he went flying across the bedroom and crashed into his beanbag chair in the corner.

And he heard her laugh at him like a maniac. "PWAHAHAHAHAHA! I knew you'd fall for my crying trick-aru! You stupid, stupid Sadistic human bastard! Bowing down to this Queen and apologizing like the dog you are, eh?"

He blinked, realization _and_ indignant anger filling him. So she had only been acting the entire time to get him to look submissive?! He got his limbs to be untangled and he shot up from his chair to lunge at her, "Why you *bleep*-,"

"What, what, you're going to do a pancake move on me again, Sadist? I dare you to try, because I'm going to shift and rip out your *bleep* next time!" she was already up and in a vigorous taunting stance, her eyes burning with a new passion and her position haughty.

He couldn't help but think that this was the woman was most beautiful when she was yelling at him crazily and stupidly. It sure as hell, beat that gloomy counterpart she acted out.

Okita frowned, shocking himself at what he was thinking about. Where the hell did that thought come from?

Maybe it was that thought which led him into doing what he never thought he would do while he lived... especially to a woman he thought he hated with a passion.

He didn't end up lunging at her to wrap his hands around her neck, but instead, enveloped her in a firm hold and kissed her.

Least to say, she must have been really surprised, but also enjoying the rather short lived touch he shared with her. It took her at least a few whole minutes to finally recover and push him back, her face as red as a cherry and stuttering like mad.

She was barely able to get a word out, and he smirked at her, knowing that this was only going to be the beginning.

* * *

In the darkness of the cavern, a man with two rifles next to him and a hunting dagger in his hand scowled. "And you're saying that that woman is that wolf?"

"That's impossible. What utter bullshit are you feeding us this time, huh?" the shadows hid most of their faces from view, but no light was needed because they were able to distinguish who each of them were by their voices.

The man in the center protested, "It's true! I've been around that cabin for weeks now, and that wench hasn't died yet. No human could have ever withstood that poison, and she was still alive and kicking. If she isn't a werewolf, then how would she still be alive?!"

"So what? We can't even get near that place without being found out and blown away by that Okita brat." Another man spat at the mentioning of Okita.

"No... with just us, that would be impossible… unless this time, we can draw the entire town out and pit them against him and his family… starting off with that crippled chit sister of his."

"What's your plan, boss?" all the men turned to the person in the corner of the cavern who had a long pipe in his mouth.

After a long while, he spoke up, a stream of smoke escaping his lips, "Ridding his weakness first does seem ingenious, but it won't be enough to cripple him with that other guard dog around."

"Hijikata? Leave him to us."

"Hm. Not one of you would be able to go hand to hand with him, either. No… we need to be able to fell them in one swoop. Judging by what I've heard, that werewolf has become something to that young trapper. If we use her, we may be able to draw out the rest of the pack and get the townspeople to go against him."

"But how are we going to-,"

"One need only to play the bait to catch the proper bait." Another long slither of smoke disappeared into the air. "One of you will have to become a scapegoat to trap them. If we don't act without the tenacity to trap a trapper in his best, we won't be able to bring them down."

"Please leave it to me, then, boss. I'll definitely draw them out."

A dark eye glistened with malice at the volunteer. "Then do your best."

* * *

 **So... yeah. Kind of a bad cliffhanger, but there you go. The story's coming to an end... cry, cry... it was so much fun to write...**

 **See you all in the final chapter (*waves farewell*)!**


	8. Never Cry Wolf (Part III)

**Hallooo dear readers~ KRabbit here with the last chapter! Today's my birthday, so coinciding with that date, I decided to update after I edited...** **This is the end of this story... cry, cry. I had such a fun time writing this story with this prompt. Not sure if this chapter answered everyone's expectations... but anyway, here it is.**

 **Hope you enjoy! Reviews, please^o^**

 **Disclaimers: Gintama is not mine**

* * *

Chapter 8: Never Cry Wolf (Part III)

" _China!_ "

The so called young lady looked up at the shouting of her nickname, but didn't seem particularly bothered by it, and continued to nibble on the sukonbu whilst she flipped through the pages of the manga on the floor.

The name was from no other than the courtesy of Okita Sougo, the human trapper who had caught her, caged her and also taken care of her this past month. Apparently, he called her that since she'd taken to wearing Chinese clothes when they'd last gone shopping with Mitsuba in town, and he refused to call her by her name (and also because she wouldn't let him call her a *bleep*).

She couldn't figure out his motives for keeping her here yet, since he hadn't done anything else too sadistic or barbaric ever since…

Kagura bit her lip at that memory and rubbed her lips absentmindedly with her fingers. She had fully recovered from that poisoned bullet wound, and was able to shift at any time now and leave. It didn't seem as if the Sadist had been keeping tabs on her or anything either, so she could have fled the moment he stepped out from the cabin. But she hadn't, and found herself continuing to stay here and _wanting_ to remain there.

Now, _why_ she would do such a thing, she still couldn't understand (perhaps it was because she enjoyed fighting with someone who was her equal and perfect match?), and she knew that she shouldn't stay at all, if it was for her family and for herself. Plus, to think that she would stay willingly in one of the homes of someone who could have killed her mother disgusted her.

And yet… yet, she knew that this human wasn't the same as any other disgusting, cowardly or brutal human she had observed and been warned against. She liked the mornings where she woke up and found him softly breathing on the floor next to the bed where she slept; she enjoyed eating the food he made (he was a pretty good cook); and she relished the fights she had with him that made her blood boil and feel alive. But if there was one thing that made her feel unnerved, it was that the more time she spent with him, the more nostalgia she felt, as if she had seen him somewhere before… and she felt that old fear and pain rushing back to her.

"China, you *bleep*, I'll get you for sure this time-," Knocked out of her reverie, Kagura quickly dodged the katana flying towards her and somersaulted into the air, landing on her feet on the bed opposite of the door and straightening her red Cheongsam over her legs.

She glared at him, annoyed now that he speared her manga like a shish kabob. "What the hell is it this time, Sadist?"

"You burnt my clothes with a fire poker – _again_! _How_ many times have I told you _not_ to do that?!" Okita looked furious as he waved the remains of what was formerly, three pairs of his good dress shirts.

"Well, you said to iron them, so I only did what you told me to-aru." She replied nonchalantly, waving a hand and crossing her arms. This was a part of the deal in return for letting her stay in his cabin for free. She would help out with the housework and stay away from the kitchens when he was away, but… well, so far, it hadn't worked out very well and ended mostly in a disaster where she and he engaged in physical and verbal fights.

"There is a perfectly well functioning ironer in this house, for crying out loud! What the *bleep* had given you the idea that a blazing _fire poker_ was a *bleep*ing iron?! The last time, you ironed my clothes with a steaming frying pan!"

"It was the only iron I could find that smelled like one-aru."

Letting out a frustrated growl, Okita lunged at her again, and this time, Kagura had let out her own claws and sharp teeth in retaliation. But before they could exchange any blows, a knock resounded on the door behind them.

Both turned their heads at the familiar voice that said, "My my, aren't you two getting along fabulously. You're just like a newly wedded couple."

"Aneue! What are you doing here—and alone, on top of that? Wasn't that Hijikata or Kuraba-san with you?" Okita quickly sheathed his katana and ran to her, but not before he threw the burnt clothes at Kagura's face for good measure. She spat out the burnt fabric from her mouth and frowned at his switch in behavior. She suddenly felt a surge of pain and twisted bitterness towards Mitsuba, who always made him laugh or smile and act so differently. It wasn't her fault, really, and she deserved all his attention, but…

The fact that he treated her differently… hurt, just a little.

She breathed out a sigh and retracted her claws and teeth, and sniffed the air. She stiffened when she smelled something foreign coming from Mitsuba's direction, and narrowed her cerulean eyes.

Mitsuba was wearing a thick winter kimono with a haori and another blanket around her lap, and looked as lovely as ever, but rather paler than usual.

"Well, it had been a while, so I wanted to check up on you two and see how you were doing. Good thing I did, I suppose," Mitsuba laughed amusedly, though she did sound a little tired. She eyed the younger pair. "And I'm doing fine, Sou-chan, so you don't need to worry."

Her brother looked extremely concerned and added, "But-,"

"Oi, Sadist, c'mere for a sec." Kagura interrupted the brother-sister conversation, yanking on Okita's shirt and dragging him away from his sister. She hastily said to the older woman, "Mi-chan, I'm going to borrow him for a bit, okay?"

"By all means, Kagura-chan. I'll be in the kitchen, then, Sou-chan, alright?"

Okita sputtered, "What the hell, Chin-,"

"Mi-chan's being poisoned-aru." She said candidly. There was no point in dillydallying, after all.

He froze like a statue at her words, shock and anger filling him. "What?"

She repeated almost impatiently, "I said, Mi-chan's being poisoned-aru. I can smell something weird in her system, something that's not supposed to be there. You need to warn her."

"But who the hell would poison Aneue? I made sure that she had a good caretaker and got rid of all the intruders or bullies around her home, so who would…" he cursed when his thoughts led him to one solution. "Poison. Someone who likes screwing with poison, and wasn't afraid to go on head to toe with me. Those wretched hunters, I'll-!"

"Hold on-aru, you don't even know if it's their plot or not, Sadist." Kagura yanked back Okita by the hair of his head, and he flopped onto the ground, clutching his head.

"Ow, woman, did you have to do that?!"

"You wouldn't have listened to me either way-aru, so a physical approach was necessary. What if you're walking straight into their trap?"

"Trapping a trapper? What an ironic thing to say."

"From what I know about humans, they're not ones to so easily give up unless they're stamped down or die-aru. Those hunters and trappers smelled and felt the same. You know that they hate you, so why don't you think for a second that they're-,"

"It's not your business to deal with, China."

She recoiled from his words, as if he had slapped her. "What?"

Okita's blood-brown eyes stared down at her in a hard gaze as he repeated, "I said, it doesn't concern you. Would that clear it up? And I'm not as stupid as to think that they're still not out for me or for Aneue. Involving you in this messed up fray would only make it worse."

Anger rose in her, and she spat, "Who the hell are you to say I can't help out Mi-chan?! She's been a lot more civil to me than you have, and who are you to say that I can't protect myself? I'm a wolf, not a human like you are, so you-,"

She suddenly found herself being slammed into the wall, her arms above her head and his legs trapping her. "W-what are you-,"

"You are a _human woman_ right now. If any human male got close to you like this-," he squeezed her wrists tightly and leaned in close so that there was no space between their bodies, making her flush. "-you won't be able to fend them off, no matter _how_ strong you are in combat. And even if you _are_ a wolf?" he gave out a scoffing laugh and continued, "These men aren't like me, China – they will kill you without a single bit of remorse if they find out that you're not human. It might not be easy to kill you, but since whatever breathes and lives can also be killed; so can you. You're not omnipotent, nor are you immortal."

His words spiraled in her mind, imprinting as deeply as his hold on her. Releasing her wrists and shoving her down to the floor, Okita turned to leave the room.

"So—so you don't care if I leave now? I thought you-,"

"I what? That I had somehow developed a bond with you?" he smirked down at her, his eyes cold. "Don't get full of yourself. You're just another toy I picked up; something that occupied some of my time, but not important enough that I have to stain my hands with blood."

His words, his stance, his actions – they hurt. After spending all that time with her, he was telling her he saw her as a liability and nothing at all to him; warning her that she wouldn't be able to protect herself, and protect anyone else, no less.

She didn't understand why he would say all this – why he would hurt her to such an extent.

Was she the only one dancing to a nonexistent tune, egged on by her emotions?

She was silent for a while, her fears intermingling with her indignation and fury. But there was that sense of unease too because she knew… that he wasn't lying to her. Before she could she think further on as to why he would say what he'd said, a gunshot rang out outside.

Despite being in separate areas of the cabin, both of them were instantly on alert, and knew that something was happening… and the only one in danger right now was Mitsuba.

Okita grabbed his katana, and Kagura followed him out of the cabin, and they found themselves being surrounded by a familiar sight…

"Well, well, well. Looks like we didn't have to drag you out, Okita Sougo."

Assessing the group of hunters, trappers and angry looking townspeople, Okita wrapped his fingers around his katana and was about to unsheathe it when a voice called out, "Please wait, Okita-kun."

"Mayor Tokugawa?" his eyes widened at the leader of their town who came out from the crowd, Hijikata behind him with the other hunters. "Hijikata-san, what is-?"

Their mayor nodded at Hijikata, who stepped forward to clasp Okita's hands with a handcuff and held another katana at his throat. "You are under arrest for the murders of the past fifteen deaths with the usage of your werewolf and incurring the townspeople's fear-,"

"Toshiro-san, what are you-?!" Okita eyed his sister, who was being gripped by two hunters on his left. She didn't seem to be harmed, though, in any way, though he was furious at how of all people, _Hijikata_ was the one who was reading the verdict and accusing him.

But if he retaliated, not only Mitsuba, but… Kagura would get hurt. He would have to wait this one out till he understood what exactly, besides the obvious, was going on.

"—and of threatening the wolf hunters alleged to protect this town, for the usage of illegal poisoned bullets, and of physical assault on the trapper Tendou using your werewolf again, and are accused of faking your traps and catches in the past when you must have used your… pet instead."

"Put him in jail!" someone from the crowd shouted in anger, and others chorused the same until all around them, the people were jostling each other to spit at Okita.

"Punish him for all the hurt and death he's brought to us! Kill that woman and wipe out his family!"

"Get rid of him!"

"Get out of this town!"

The townspeople's anger was understandable, and very much relatable, even to Okita. These werewolf attacks had been going on for a while; their fear was riling them up to be inconceivable and unpredictable. And if they thought that he was the mastermind who used Kagura, of all peoples, to get rid of his competitors, and bring death to them all by consorting with the enemy, then… such a crime was punishable by death, if not exile. He had always gone out and found a solution to all his problems, but… this one would be hard to get out of.

He couldn't look at Kagura or his sister, and didn't want to look at Hijikata, so he scanned the angry crowd, searching for whoever was the real mastermind behind this mess. If it was someone who hated him, then he or she would be sure to be there to brag silently. Okita's eyes zeroed in on a familiar looking black-haired man in the crowd with an eyepatch and a kiseru, and realization dawned on him.

"Okita Sougo, do you deny your crimes and plead innocent, or will you confess them?" the mayor stood in front of Okita now, though he looked rather hurt and pained to be the one saying this. He didn't know the mayor directly, but Okita knew that Tokugawa ShigeShige was a good man and a wise ruler who cared for all the people under his regency. To accuse someone who had served him for a good many years as a trapper must have been a hard thing to do.

"You know the answer already, Mayor Tokugawa. I have done nothing wrong."

The older man shook his head sadly when the crowd went wild with fervent anger, spitting at Okita and screaming for justice. "I cannot do anything but fix what is _wrong_ here, young Sougo."

Okita froze as he was seized by his arms and shoved to the ground, his weapons taken from him forcibly. He watched in horror as they dragged Kagura by her hair into the middle of the crowd, where she was forced down next to Mitsuba.

"Wait, what are you doing to them?! They have nothing to do-,"

"That, is where you are wrong, young Okita." The tallest hunter, the one who had challenged him at his cabin a month ago when he first came to collect Kagura sneered. "This woman in the werewolf *bleep* who's been running amok in our town and killing, under your orders. No wonder you didn't want to turn her over to us in the beginning."

"Don't call me a *bleep*, you bastard!" Kagura wormed her way out of the other men's grips and shot out a fist, knocking back the hunter with a punch. The bigger man staggered for a bit, then straightening, slammed his own hand across her face, sending her crashing into the ground.

When Kagura stood, her eyes were glowing an angry blue, and the crowd around them cowered in fear, then turned their animosity towards her, shouting at how she had to be terminated like a stray dog.

"Of course, we would have to get rid of this filthy mongrel first before we bring justice, don't you think?" the hunters called out, making the crowd cheer.

"No…"

A few of the men ran at her, and while Kagura tried to pull back and defend herself, she was shot down by several tranquilizing darts – similar to the ones he'd used when he first trapper her – and forced down on her knees.

" _No_ … you _can't_ do this! She's not-!" Okita shouted, struggling against the men restraining him. His cried were being drowned out by the cheering, and saw Kagura's eyes rise to meet his for one moment. He shuddered, breathing hard at that look in her eyes. It was that same fear in her eyes which told him of her fragility and vulnerability, eyes pleading for him to help despite what he'd said to her before. He knew that she must have been hurt, but she was still asking him to help her. He wished with all his strength that he could do something – anything, but for the first time in his life... he couldn't.

Under all his struggling, he suddenly felt a hand slip something heavy and metallic into his pants pocket and heard, "I've given you your stage, Sougo."

He barely managed to twist around to see Hijikata's pale blue eyes reflecting that solid steel of trust. He wanted to curse out loud at him for being such a blatantly bad actor and promised himself that he would be sure to pay it back later in threefold.

But for now, he would have to concentrate on helping out his girl in distress… and in the only way he could at that moment.

"China's going to yap like a hag when she sees me do this…" he muttered, and reached into his pants pocket slowly, his fingers curling around the hilt of the gun.

Affixing the weapon's position inside his pocket, he pulled the trigger.

* * *

Bright red blood spewed forth like a fountain, staining the ground, spraying the air and soaking people's clothes.

Kagura watched the events unfold in front of her eyes in a blur.

She had been struggling against her assailants and trying to free herself when the gunshot rang out. She smelled before she saw Okita's blood stain the ground, and then the ugly hunter in front of her come down on his knees, clutching his leg. The large rifle tumbled out of his hands.

Confusion swallowed any of her rationality as she watched Okita's lips form the word, 'run' as he shot her own captors, bringing them to the ground.

It took a moment to do so, but she understood why he was acting out of his way to help her now, of all times.

He had only been pushing her away so she wouldn't get hurt when he would really put forth his own plans to get to the bottom of this mess.

He had never hated her – he had only thought and acted cruelly out of consideration for her life.

Before anything else though, she saw Okita run at her after shooting his own captors, and the ugly hunter reaching for his handgun at his waist – not at Okita, but at her.

She opened her mouth to call out for him one last time when the red fountain burst like a too ripened berry splattering the ground and filling the air with its pungent sweet scent.

She saw Okita stumble in front of her, blood filling her sense of smell, and heard the last gunshot ring out along with the screams splitting the air.

She didn't care about the man who fell to the ground, dead, but could concentrate only on trying to get to the man in front of her.

She could smell the thickness of blood increase in the air, and could only faintly hear his heartbeat until it was a small, almost nonexistent echo in his body.

"Sadist…? Sadist, don't joke around, I know you're still awake – c'mon, you're not that weak, right? To go down with just one bullet when you've taken more from me…" he didn't move at all.

The people around them moved uneasily, and the hunters were on full alert, surrounding her and Okita. Hijikata had brought Mitsuba to his side and held her with a solemn, shocked face as she began to cry, but no one made a move to touch Okita.

"Damn it… no, Sadist… Sadist…" she continued to call out, her arms weakly reaching out for him. Taking advantage of her vulnerable state, another human stood in front of her, a pistol poised against her head.

But she didn't care about all that; couldn't pay attention. Everything she had was fixated on the person bleeding on the ground, and her eyes widened when she remembered –

"S-Sou-kun…?"

 _"Run!" the little boy whispered fiercely to the small wolf pup, who refused to move. "Run for it!"_

 _The little wolf was frozen at the sight of all the humans carrying their iron and blood-soaked smelling weapons; at the leering faces, the hateful expressions all staring down at her._

 _Was this how her mother died? Surrounded by creatures who knew nothing and were ignorant of everything except their own fears?_

 _"Run, while I hold them off!"_

 _What are you planning to do? She wanted to yip at him as her legs trembled. She looked up at the small boy, who stood there bravely as he faced the large group with a miniscule wooden sword in his hands._

 _"Just hand over the wolf, boy, and we'll let you go. Hurry up now," one of the humans snarled, and the wolf pup growled back in response._

 _"No. This is my friend. She hasn't hurt anybody, and she hasn't done anything wrong."_

 _"Her very presence is what's wrong in this town, boy! If that chit grows to be a full-grown adult, then it may start attacking the townspeople. We can't have that happen-,"_

 _"No! She won't hurt anyone! She hasn't done anything wrong!"_

 _The wolf watched as first blood soaked the ground and a large fight broke out. The adults overpowered and outnumbered the boy, and the boy fought just as fiercely as he could, swinging his small weapon and whacking them._

 _"Run! Run!"_

 _She couldn't leave him behind… so she instead joined the fray and defended her friend._

 _Her claws scratched and her teeth bit, and she was at her friend's side at all times._

 _And then –_

 _Immeasurable pain shot through her chest and she went down on the ground, whimpering. It hurt. Everything hurt so much, and she couldn't move, but her senses all worked well – she could still hear what they were saying._

 _A rough voice rasped, "Just grab the boy and toss him. We have the wolf pup now."_

 _"No!"_

 _She heard hysteric screams, and then the sound of a gun in the distance. All fell silent except for the pain eating away at her. She heard sniffles and a soft hand stroke her head, then her fur as small arms wrapped around her, lifting her from the hard ground._

 _"I'm sorry…"_

 _Was he crying? Was her friend crying? The boy she knew to be a twisted little do-S brat was crying?_

 _"I'm sorry… if I wasn't so weak, then I could have protected you… I'm sorry…"_

 _But it's not your fault. You helped me; defended me when I stood there, scared. I'll heal soon; I'm not dying, please don't cry –_

 _"I'm sorry…"_

 _-Sou-kun._

And now… he was the one bleeding to death because of these stupid humans. She moved almost numbly, her fingers quickly reaching for her Cheongsam as she ripped the edge and flipped Okita over to see where he was bleeding. She pressed down hard to stop the bleeding, but blood only gushed forth like a stubborn fountain as fear swamped her insides. " _Sadist…!_ "

She wanted to exchange one more punch with him, but he didn't move under her pleas or her ministrations. "Sougo… please… you have to wake up-,"

She wanted to have one more crazed meal with him in that room, hear him screaming at her to not hog all the food, but all the color bled out of his face as that red streamed through her fingers, coating her clothes and skin. "Sougo _… Sougo_ …"

She wanted to share one more kiss with him and tell him she was sorry for screwing with his *bleep*, but she couldn't hear his heartbeat, his breath, or see any more movement anymore.

He was dead now because of her.

The pistol clicked off its safety, and its owner pulled back a finger against the trigger.

Screaming in her human form, the moment Kagura raised her head back and howled, her wolf tore out into her outer form. Her grieved cries turned into a beastly growl ripping from her throat as she finally called for those waiting for her to call.

Her family answered back in loud howls, and soon the crowd was in turn surrounded by large werewolves who growled, their teeth bared and eyes glowing with an unearthly light.

When she knew that she was protected by those of her pack, she could only collapse beside her own human male, her head deeply bowed and a low keen resounding in her chest. She nudged his neck for a pulse and prodded at his body with her paws, and let out another low, sorrowful howl.

Had she been 12 years too late in finally finding him? The only human being she called friend, and the only one she'd cared for besides her family? Had she found him finally, only to have him be taken away for good this time?

"Kagura," a cheerful voice nudged her, and she turned her head to growl with her teeth bared at her brother in his humanoid form (and fully dressed, too). "I see that you've grown attached to that little human thing. Do you want me to help?"

" _Kamui. If all you're going to do is mock him, then I will rip your throat out-,_ " she hissed to him. All their kind were telepathically connected so that they didn't have to communicate with verbal speech when they were wolves.

Her brother gave her a serene smile, his hands making a motion for her to calm down. "Relax. He's not dead yet."

" _What?_ "

"If all that shock's made you go dumb when you're in your other form, that I understand, but honestly, you can still hear his heart beating." Kamui pointed at the body before them, and when Kagura strained her ears, she could indeed hear that her brother wasn't lying – under everything, she could still hear the small, pitter patter of his heart. Her own heart leaped in her chest in the hope that he was alive. "But that may change for the worse, if you don't do something."

" _What the hell are you-,_ " she stopped in her outrage when she comprehended his annotation and snarled, " _You're asking me to turn him?"_

He continued on, shrugging his shoulders. "There's no guarantee that he'll survive the change, but this chance is better than nothing."

She growled at him in fury. " _How can I trust you on this?_ "

He smiled his usual smile at her, "I would never lie to my own sister. Turn him, if you wish, but he will be on his own during the change. I would do it sooner than not at all, Kagura. Seeing your crying face is worse than seeing baldie's head, after all."

Kagura shivered at the thought of losing Okita now, and asked, " _What do I have to do?_ "

* * *

Whilst the two werewolves and one dying human were in the process of something important, the other party was left to deal with the large pack of werewolves, who were guarding them and defending themselves against the human hunters and trappers.

Neither group made a single move, and no one could breathe a word in fear of these foreign, but magnificent beasts.

That was until one man from each stepped up to face each other.

"Are you the leader of these Earthlings?" a (half) bald man in Chinese clothes asked.

The mayor Tokugawa ShigeShige nodded, and gestured to his men to lower their weapons. "Are you the ones responsible for the killing of our people, then?"

"Killing is a bit harsh." A silver haired man stepped up from amongst the pack in a human form, shrugging. "It's a natural thing to defend one's own place in their own home, after all."

"What are you-?!" one of the townspeople shouted, before they were shushed by a harsh growl from the wolves.

The (half) bald man spoke up with a polite bow, "I am Umibozu, leader of this pack, and of the Yato clan. Our kind have always lived in these lands and have ties to this place long before you humans came in. We did once thrive alongside your kind, but were forced to go undercover and live in secret when there was a large hunting of our kind about 12 years ago, so you must not have known of our existences until now."

"Why was it then, that you've chosen to appear now?"

"Only because of the recent events, which you must be aware of, young man. You call us beasts and inhuman murderers, but that beast, or 'monster' which you call us are a part of our nature. Maiming and eating of flesh is a part of us, something that cannot be changed. But we never kill indiscriminately as you pointed out, and have never touched a hand on your townspeople for sport. That, would be the work of you men." As he said this, he nodded at a certain man in the crowd, who came forward along with a few familiar faces.

"Boss, you betrayed us all! Why would you-,"

"That was only because I was never a part of you rogues." The man answered, and taking out the kiseru from his mouth, unwound something from the back of his head and tore off his entire face, revealing a man with long hair.

People gasped in surprise as they pointed. Even the mayor looked taken aback at the man behind the disguise. "Y-you-! The famous Hunter nicknamed Youth of Noble Madness: Katsura Kotarou?!"

"I couldn't believe that I had to work with Hijikata-kun of all people, but I'd owed a favor to an old friend." Katsura explained, sighing at the silver-headed man.

"Yo, Zura. I see you've done your work, then?"

"It's not Zura, it's Katsura, Gintoki. Honestly, after all those years of knowing you, I would have expected you to…" realizing that he wasn't alone as he went on a rant, Katsura coughed into his fist and turned to the mayor, "I have been with these men for the past three months, sire, and can prove, along with vital evidence that they are the ones responsible for all the killings in this town and of everything else Hijikata-kun mentioned… along with fore-planned murder by poison."

The renown Hunter held up a pouch of something white and powdery, then kicked forward the man in the group who had his hands and legs tied together.

"This man, who has been a part of the Extremist group, has also been secretly poisoning Okita Mitsuba-dono's foods as he worked in her house. Had I been too late, Mitsuba-dono would have died in three weeks time. And if anything, they only pinned the blame on Okita Sougo in hopes for ridding another competitor, and increase the number of victims on their list. The werewolves had nothing to do with it."

"I see." The topnotted man said sternly, eyeing the group of hunters on the ground. He motioned for his personal guards to take them away so that they would receive their 'due punishment'. "So what remains for us is to deal with is our gratitude and apologies for you, leader Umibozu."

"The only thing that I would ask of you is that you leave us in peace. We will not leave these lands, but we will never venture into this town's borders again. If any of you seek us out beyond the safety of your own town, then I will not be responsible for any of their deaths. And if you ever seek us out in hopes of ridding us from this land, I swear by the hairs (of what remains) on my head that until every living thing is killed in this town, my pack will not stop in overrunning this place. That is my only condition."

There were no arguments for what was soon done and agreed upon, and the crowds parted and went their own ways, as if nothing had happened.

The wolves disappeared, as promised, and that young hunter with them, and all was at peace.

 _None_ of them were seen since.

* * *

A crack of bright light and the thick smell of moss, dirt and the forest permeated his nostrils, and he flinched at the sensations of pain and sensitive nerves in his entire body pricking. It felt like he'd been stretched and pinned down, bitten or chewed on and squished thousands of times under tons of weight; he felt so, so tired.

What the hell had he been doing? Where in the world was this? It certainly didn't feel like purgatory or anything peaceful, and this certainly wasn't what he thought the afterlife to be like.

"Nnn…" he reached out a hand and felt it touch something warm and soft. Something that felt like long hair; soft and silky. He twisted his head to the side and saw Kagura there, asleep at his side and clutching his clothes. She looked worn out, as if she'd been awake for a while, and there were bags under her eyes.

She couldn't have died with him if she looked like this. There was no way… Okita's crimson-brown eyes widened as he realized… that this wasn't Heaven or Hell.

"Holy hell, I'm still alive." He whispered in shock, still trying to process what was going on.

"Don't wake her up with your nonsense."

At the foreign voice echoing through the place, Okita strained himself to get up just the slightest bit to see who it was. Pain wracked through his chest, but slowly eased up on him, and soon it was gone.

"Who… are you?" he asked the stranger, who had striking vermillion hair that was tied into a braid over his shoulder and wore Chinese clothes; a style similar to what Kagura favored wearing.

"Funny thing, I could ask the same thing of you." The stranger responded, and Okita noted that he had a large blanket made of fur in his hand. He walked forward and put the blanket over a sleeping Kagura's shoulders, smiling. "She's worn herself out after taking care of you, so you should let her rest."

Once he was done, he looked back up at Okita and repeated his question, but Okita answered, "Well, since I asked the question first, you should answer first. It's only polite to do so. Or hasn't your mother taught you enough manners to do such a basic thing?"

Okita felt the bloodlust even before he could start dodging the punch to his face. The other man's hand crunched the wooden post of the bed behind Okita and he could smell blood, though the cheery face the stranger had remained unchanged. "Sharp tongue there, haven't you? I think I see why my sister likes you, though she might not have liked you just dissing my mother."

"'Sister'?" he couldn't keep the surprise out of his voice.

The stranger chuckled. "It was a real surprise to see you're alive, though. I never would have expected a weak and lowly human thing like you to survive the process. But then again, I suppose you've been bitten by Kagura before at a young age, and you grew tolerance enough for you to go through it."

He pulled his fist back and crossed his arms, assessing Okita. Okita glared back in response, hating this guy from the start.

After a while, the stranger spoke up. "I'll leave all the explaining to Kagura when she wakes up, but you should get some rest. It's not easy, transforming into a werewolf, after all, and especially a newly made one, at that. Once Kagura explains everything, come find me so we can duel…" as the stranger moved to leave, he added, "…future-trapper-brother-in-law."

Okita watched him leave, irritation spiking. "Like _hell_ I'll let him call me that." His gaze shifted to Kagura, who was sleeping soundly. He reached out a hand to rub the dark circles under her eyes, the paleness of her skin making it an even deeper contrast. "Why do you have such an eccentric maniac for a brother, China?"

She trembled under his touch, and her eyes slowly opened. He drew back his hand, but before he could apologize for waking her, he was tackled to the ground.

He hit his head on the hard floor despite feeling the soft furs under him, and he grunted in pain. But he wasn't surprised since wrestling with her had become as common as exhibiting a bad habit. "You just _had_ to knock me out first thing again, China?"

"Shut up and let me have my moment of peace, stupid Sougo." She whispered, her arms tightening around his neck. She wouldn't lift her face, but he could feel something wet against his skin.

Hoping that it wasn't drool, Okita sighed out of exasperation… and out of content for this situation (It wasn't every day Kagura would be bold enough to act like this – and not when it was just for payback or when they were in a really awkward situation).

At the very least… he was alive, and he was with her. If that wasn't enough for now, then he didn't know what was.

Her small voice interrupted his thoughts, and he felt her fingers clutch at his back and scrape his skin, hard enough to draw blood. "I thought you were dead."

He answered in a monotone, though he was clearly mocking her. "So you're the one who gets to tell me that when I clearly thought you were the goner as a wolf pup?"

That made her jump on his torso in fury, lift her face and she begin berating him. "You son of a *bleep*ing *bleep*, if you knew, why didn't you say anything about how you were Sou-kun?! And how and why the hell would you compare your dying in front of me and my almost, but not dying at all when we were young?!"

He smirked up at her, as her face changed into an expression of both outrage and worry. "Well, well, there you go. You're much better when you're all pissed off at me than depressed. Much easier to deal with, too."

"BAKA!" Kagura slammed her fist onto his chest and smacked his face at least three times before he stopped her. "Why the _hell_ would you try and act the typical stupid hero when you don't even _like_ me? Why couldn't you have just run off and saved yourself when you had the chance? Did you _want_ me to die from a heart attack or something, and then end up killing me too when you left me vulnerable in the aftermath?! What if I lost you too?! What the _hell_ were you thinking?! Why-,"

She wasn't able to continue, because Okita shut her up in the most efficient and fastest way he knew.

Things quieted down in the cavernous area for a while, and it took even longer for Kagura ( _and_ Okita) to recover enough to get back into a conversing mode for Okita to answer her and ask questions.

The two ended up huddling together on the bed and facing each other, most of their energy spent and their questions answered adequately.

Of course… except that one last question.

"What are we going to do about… us?" she asked him, her eyes wide and lips swollen.

He rubbed a thumb against her lower lip and stroked her cheek, smirking. "Isn't it obvious? You're going to be my *bleep* for the rest of my life. You're going to have to take responsibility for turning me into a werewolf and for stealing my firsts, right, China?"

She frowned, crossing her arms. "For your information, you're the only thief around here, and you're the one who first stole my purity when you saw me naked after you *bleep*ed around in your cabin, Sadist, so you should be the one to take responsibility."

"No, but that was after you tried to bite my *bleep* off when you were in your wolf form-,"

"And that was only after you tried to put a *bleep* toy on me and test it out-,"

"That was only after _you_ -,"

"Urrrgh-," Kagura growled, then leaned forward to shut him up.

"That's going to end up becoming a habit." He murmured against her lips, and she grinned.

"At least it's better than me trying to kick your *bleep*s off to get you to stop doing something I hate-aru."

"Don't you dare think about that again. It's bad enough when you throw your fits, and I don't need my woman trying to cripple me for life when she has a better way to stop me for good."

"Your 'woman'?"

He smiled. "There's nothing wrong with that, is there?"

"No… excluding the fact that Papi and Gin-chan aren't going to approve that."

"Well, they're going to have to live with the fact that the precious, precocious daughter of the Yato is going to marry an ex-trapper/human who's also a rather possessive Sadist expert."

"Hmph...you have a horrible way of proposing to a girl, Sadist."

"Oh please. You're just going to accept it no matter what I do, so deal with it."

"Then you're going to have to try harder… Ookami*-san."

* * *

"Mitsuba, what are you doing near the window? You're going to catch a cold."

Mitsuba turned back around to see her husband hovering around her with a blanket in his hands. She responded with a smile. "The day was so nice outside, I just…"

Hijikata stood there, silent. He knew that she was lying; she was such a bad liar. Putting the soft white blanket over her shoulders, he said, "Sougo… will be fine. You shouldn't worry about him."

It had been a year since she'd seen her brother.

A full year since any traces of him had disappeared along with those wolves, and Kagura as well.

She could only hope that he'd found both his happiness and recovered from his wounds, just like she'd recovered from her own illness and found a family with the person she loved. But it was difficult, sometimes, to wonder what had happened. She had no way of knowing, and would never know.

She fisted the blanket around her shoulders as Hijikata seated himself beside her and held her hand. "It was so unfair… Sou-chan spent so long looking after me… and… and, I was never able to do anything for him in the end."

"He would have been satisfied that you were happy. You know that he loved you, so don't blame yourself too much. It was a decision he'd made."

She looked down at her hands, her eyebrows wrinkled together and her face downcast. "I… I just wish that I could have seen him once more, Toshiro-san. I want to know if he's alright, and-,"

A loud howl made her and Hijikata turn their heads towards a large figure in the distance.

Mitsuba's brown-red eyes widened at the large vermillion-auburn colored wolf, the larger wolf with sandy blonde brown fur, and the three smaller versions of the full grown wolves near them yipping excitedly.

She swore that her eyes met theirs, and even at a distance, she could recognize those eyes… and the people who owned them.

She stayed there in the company of her new family, sitting at the window ledge until she saw the wolves turn and fade from sight... and smiled as she heard their full, beautiful howls chorusing as one.

* * *

 ***Ookami just means 'wolf', so she's calling him Mr. Wolf now, basically^^ Rather literal _and_ fitting, isn't it?**

 **And... there we are. The end of this story...**

 **And of course, on to the next one! The next one will be up to you guys to decide. Shall it be another fairy tale twist, or should I write another canon in the Gintama world?**


	9. Amnesia (Part I)

**Hehehehe... I always wanted to write out an amnesia story with this pair. Thought it'd be really funny. And angsty. I love angst. And drama. Well, there's a whole lot of comedy in here, too, so... don't be disappointed, readers^^ I'm working on the fairy tale twist of Red Riding Hood next, and a short oneshot in a Canon setting, so be tuned^^**

 **Thank you for your reviews, as always^o^ And a call out to Death-san! Tanjoubi Omedetou!**

 **Enjoy and leave reviews!**

 **Disclaimers: Gintama is not mine**

* * *

Chapter 9: Amnesia (Part I)

"Mother-*bleep*ing-poptart!"

"Egoistic *bleep*!"

"Immature *bleep* brat!"

"Overgrown *bleep*ing *bleep*!"

"Prick of a-,"

Before the next sentence could be finished, a loud whack could be heard, followed by groans of pain. The two instigators of the quarrel looked up at their silver-haired teacher with glares.

"What was that for, Danna-sensei?"

"What was that for, Gin-chan?!"

The so called teacher gave one last lick to his big pink lollipop before saying, "This story's barely started and you two are already fighting – and fighting long enough, I might say – so I decided to step in and stop you guys. Otherwise you're just going to be calling each other the same *bleepi*ing names for the rest of the day and make it hard for me."

"But he-!"

"But she-!"

Their teacher glared down at them through his glasses and said, "How old are you two again? Right, 17. Isn't that an old enough age that you two stop bickering enough for the story to go on already? It's not even mating season or whatnot, so stop yapping about him doing this and her doing that. It sounds perverse enough already."

"The one with a perverse mind is you." The two chorused, then glared, and proceeded to turn their backs on each other, scowling.

"Don't mimic me, brat."

"That's my line-aru, brat."

Before another fight could start, two of the other students stepped in and whisked the two away, keeping them apart.

Watching the two go their separate ways, Gintoki mumbled, "Despite saying so, they get along pretty fabulously, huh. Is it that hard to just get on with it and take the next step in their relationship?"

* * *

"Are you alright, Kagura-chan? You have a huge bump growing on your head." Otae, Kagura's 'Anego'/mentor/friend worriedly asked her, rubbing the small animated lump on her head.

"It's fine-aru. Plus, it probably hurt Gin-chan more than it hurt me." The girl muttered, looking out the window absentmindedly, almost oblivious to the pain.

"Kagura-chan, what's wrong? You seem to get along with everyone else but Okita-san. Is it that hard to get along with him? Why do you always keep getting into fights with him? Is there a reason why-,"

"NO! No, that's not it…" Kagura vehemently denied whatever Otae was going to say, a huge frown marring her face. She fisted her hand into a ball and hit her leg in a rhythmic motion, struggling to explain. "It's… it's just that… I can't explain well-aru. But well… he just gets under my skin really badly – almost like a stupid itch that won't go away no matter how hard I try-aru."

If Kagura had taken a hard look at her friend's face, she would have seen that knowing glint in those brown eyes. "Oh… I see."

* * *

On the other side of the school building, two legs dangled from the roof's edge, looking down at the intimidating distance from the rooftop to the ground.

"If you're going to say something, then say it now, Hijikata-san. I know you didn't bring me out here on a clear space where no one comes by for nothing." The young man glanced at his senpai who was just standing behind him with a serious expression on his face. "Of course, unless you're thinking of pushing me off."

"Sougo, that's enough of your jokes. Even you're not as hard on me as you are on that China-san."

"Hmph." Knowing that he was in for another lecture, Okita turned his back completely, slipping his arms through the metal poles of the fence and dangling all of his limbs through them. The wind blew furiously outside, as if it was a harbinger of the incoming storm.

"So why are you so hung up on her? She's the only one who it seems… you can't get along with. Why is that?"

"Are you asking me that in a stupid romantic way like chits do in their spare time, or-,"

"Kondou-san is worried. Gintoki-sensei called him about your fights, but Kondou-san doesn't have the time to deal with that. I'm telling you to wake up from your immaturity and stop fighting needlessly."

Okita's fingers clenched around the metal in frustration as he murmured, "So he called Hijikata-san instead of speaking to me directly…"

"Sougo."

"I'm not doing it on purpose," Okita said quietly. Hijikata had to strain his ears to hear him over the wind. "It's just that… well, she's like this annoyingly immature pet I want to keep playing with. It just never gets old."

The older student looked at him in shock. "So you're only picking fights with her because it helps you edge off your SM tendencies?"

"Somehow, when you say it like that, I want to kick you off this rooftop. Please stop making me out like a pervert, Hijikata-san." Okita replied in a monotone, but his eyes said that he was seriously annoyed.

"A-alright, I get it. But are you sure you haven't considered any other possibility?"

"About what?"

"About maybe why you act this way, and only towards that China-san."

" _What_ are you-," Okita stopped, then slowly turned to look up at Hijikata. One look at him told Hijikata that his kouhai had understood what he was implying, and he gulped at the incoming horror.

As suspected, he was thrown off the roof.

* * *

 ** _The next day_**

On the way to the classroom, Okita spotted his favorite play toy and ran ahead to say hello.

What surprised him… was that he was met with complete silence and no reaction at all.

He figured that she was till pissed at him for yesterday and decided to lay off for just a while, hoping that she would cool down (or perhaps heat up?) enough to return to their usual fights, but…

She continued to ignore him.

For the entire day.

By the time their classes were over, the weather outside had quickly turned gloomy and pouring rain, matching Okita's moods very well. Kagura was still ignoring him like hell, and while the others looked as if they were glad to see that the two didn't fight, seemed uncomfortable with the sudden change in their attitudes.

Despite being well prepared all the time for such situations, Okita had forgotten to bring an umbrella. He stood in the entry of the building, looking out at the pouring rain as the students exited the building one by one in their own umbrellas.

He counted off each finger for the potential candidates who could help him out in this case, but… none of them were available. Hijikata had already gone ahead for his tutoring lessons with Kondou; Shinpachi the glasses-guy would be staying behind to help their teacher; he would rather drop dead than go and ask the other inhuman women for help; and he didn't know anyone else well enough to steal their umbrella and leave them crying.

When he spotted Kagura's rabbit-patterned pink umbrella, and Kagura herself readying to go out into the rain he was tempted to go and ask, but that look she gave him was so poisonous that he'd faltered midway.

Standing there and watching her leave, a sharp sting echoed inside him, irritation quickly replacing it. What the hell had he done to make her look like that? Why was she ignoring him for crying out loud – _now_ , of all times – when she'd never done so before?

Questions whirled inside his mind, but the only thing he could do was to do nothing other than ask the person herself directly.

Ignoring the rain that quickly soaked him and his bag, Okita ran after her in the rain, managing to catch up to her nearby the crossroads.

The cold was nothing compared to his rage of emotions, and he grabbed Kagura's arm before she could cross the street when the light turned green.

He went straight to the point, ignoring her expression of shock, "Why are you ignoring me, China?"

She yanked her arm out of his grip and presumed to walk forward when he stopped her. "You owe me an answer, at the very least, if you're not going to talk to me again."

She ignored him again and began walking forward. The lights were blinking green, a sure sign that the signals were going to change soon.

"Oi, China!" he gave one last, hard tug at her, and she finally snapped, " _Because I'm tired of it_!"

At her sudden shout, he froze in his tracks as she continued, "I'm _tired_ of you calling me names; I'm tired of you pinching, poking and fighting me! I'm tired of everything to do with you! I _hate_ you, and I don't want to see you ever again! So _stop_ following me already, Okita!"

He felt like he'd been slapped, hard. It was worse than getting kicked by her in the groin because he didn't expect such an answer. He didn't know what it was, but a foreign emotion took over him and he finally let go of her arm and stepped back.

He couldn't see her face very well in the pouring rain, so he supposed he couldn't be seen by her as his expression twisted into that of pain.

"I see. Then you're never going to have to deal with me again."

* * *

Kagura watched as Okita walked away from her in a slow pace, tightening her fingers around the hilt of her umbrella. Had she made the right choice by really telling him off? That she hated him, even though it wasn't completely true?

She couldn't tell. She didn't feel light-headed or feel refreshed – only a gnawing, unbearable emotion that scraped her insides and whacked her with guilt. Guilt because she knew she had really hurt him; that he was going to leave her alone now.

Alone…

Hadn't she had enough of being left alone? Her mother had died at an early age; her father and brother who were both working overseas and never had any time to see her – hadn't she been left alone enough?

Now… she was pushing away the person who'd never left her alone (though it was really only pestering out of pure hatred more than love).

Was she prepared for those consequences?

As if following what she wanted to do, her body moved on her own to stop Okita and to tell him she was sorry for saying what she didn't mean. To apologize, make up and return to their old style of life.

But before she could, she saw a car spiraling in the corner of her eye and sped towards them. The maneuvering of the driving was sloppy, and the driver wouldn't slow down, even though the light was still red.

Was he – her eyes widened behind her glasses at the knowledge of what was going to occur. Okita was still walking forward like a zombie, apparently unaware of his surroundings.

"Sadist!" she screamed, but he couldn't hear her over the rain.

"Sadist, damn it, watch out!" she screamed again, this time, her feet running forward in panic.

Would she make it in time?

" _No!_ " her hands were already out and in position and pushing him away – to the other side; the safe side of the sidewalk – and relief filled her to know that he was going to be alright.

* * *

"Oww… damn it, what the hell was that? China, you *bleep*…" Okita groaned, rubbing his scraped elbows. He didn't see anyone else on the crossroads or the sidewalk besides her, so he knew that she was the only person who could have pushed him. But seriously, pushing him and getting into a prissy fit when _she_ was the one who told him off?

Sighing, he grabbed his bag and shook the water from his eyes, looking around for her. "China?"

And he found her on the ground and a car in front of her.

It didn't take long to understand what had happened and ran to her, yelling for help. He gently picked her up, cradling her head and lightly slapping her face, shaking her. She was unconscious and wouldn't wake up.

"China? China, wake up-," he stilled at blood dribbling from her lips and soaking her uniform. Her glasses were strewn somewhere else and broken; and she wasn't moving at all. "W-why—what—no, you're not – please—please -,"

Her head only lolled around in his arms like a doll's head, and he couldn't think at all. Her blood continued to seep into his own shirt and merged with the wet material. But no matter how much rain poured down, it was like all that blood couldn't be washed away.

"Help… help!" trembling, he raised his voice to look around. There was no one in sight, and the pouring rain didn't help, either. "Help, please, somebody!"

At the sound of a car opening, he raised his face to call out for help. It had been the man driving the car. The man took one look at the two of them, then ran for his life.

Okita fisted one hand into a fist in frustration. He couldn't do anything right now… and couldn't even do a simple thing like catching the culprit.

And… at the root of it all – was… _his_ fault.

"Okita-kun? What are you doing out here in the rain?"

He mechanically looked up at the person holding the black umbrella and in a suit, and was about to ask who it was, but realized that it was someone he knew.

"Dan...na?"

"Oi, is that-," his teacher quickly dropped his umbrella and ran to him, taking Kagura from him and putting his head against her chest. "It's too early to look so broken, Okita-kun. Call for the ambulance – she's still alive."

The next events happened in a series of confusion – the ambulance, as well as the police came over to escort Kagura to the hospital, and Okita tagged along in Kondou's car along with Gintoki.

The police officer was about to ask Okita what had happened, but Gintoki had stopped him, saying that it was useless for now. Okita was in too much of a shock to answer any questions yet.

Gintoki glanced back at Okita, who was in the backseat and knew that he was right. His student looked as if it was the end of the world and absolutely miserable and shell-shocked.

The entire time, Okita could only look at the blood on his fingers and remember that she had been bleeding and hurt – because she had managed to save him.

"It's my fault…" he whispered, and crumpled up in the back seat, clenching his teeth and fisting his hands so hard he drew blood. He welcomed the pain but couldn't register it – he could only think of her. "Kagura…"

* * *

 ** _Beep. Beep. Beep_**.

The ventilator beeped in a monotone, but stable successions as the machines monitored Kagura's heartbeat and breathing. Four IV's were attached to her body, steadily dripping the fluids she needed to recuperate.

A bald haired old man and a younger vermillion haired young man stood at the foot of the bed, fixated on Kagura's small body lying there. White gauzes were bandaged around her head and her neck. She was deathly pale and didn't move at all. One would have even considered the two men to be statues if it wasn't for their deadly auras pouring off of them in waves.

Gintoki sat in the corner next to Okita, who looked expressionless – almost… empty.

The eight hour surgery had gone well for Kagura, and despite having lost a great amount of blood; broken all her ribs and suffering internal bleeding and a broken arm, she was going to live.

But that didn't seem to matter at all to the young man sitting in the chair near her. He had barely perked up to hear that she was alive – that she wasn't going to die – but seemed devastated that she wasn't awake.

"Okita-kun." Gintoki touched his arm, and Okita jerked, surprised. "You're going to catch a cold in those clothes. And you're covered in blood."

Okita looked down at his uniform, noting that it was true. He had known that he was covered in blood, but just hadn't cared.

"Kagura-chan!" the room's door slammed open as Shinpachi and Otae barreled inside, quietly escorted by Hijikata. "What happened to her?!"

Otae immediately let out a sob at the shocking sight, and Shinpachi only repeated his question, shock marring his features.

Gintoki was about to answer his question when a sharp ring of laughter echoed through the room. Everyone stared at the vermillion haired young man who was actually bending over and laughing at the foot of his sister's bed. His laughter was chilled and empty, and soon stopped when he said, "What a typical thing for my weak crybaby sister. Her own weakness got her into this state."

Shinpachi growled at him in anger, "Why you-,"

And Umibozu, his father turned to him to berate him, "Kamui!"

But Okita had gotten there first – knocking out a fist towards Kamui's face, which was caught in the latter's palm. Kamui coldly stared at him, and Okita stared back just as coldly – if not more angrily.

"You have no right to say anything about her."

"Oh? And do you think that _you_ do?"

As the two males locked eyes, the tension in the room escalated to a very uncomfortable pitch. No one could move or make a sound until there was a proper interruption.

The opportunity was given by Kondou, who had opened the door after knocking. He removed his hat and stepped inside, eyeing Okita, who was locked in fists with Kamui.

"Sougo… I need you to identify the culprit, so would you give me a moment?"

"Culprit… you caught him already?" Shinpachi asked, warily looking at Okita and Kamui.

"He was caught running not too far off from the scene. We identified that he was the car's owner-,"

"That was too quick. What kind of strings did you pull?" Okita snarled, glaring at the older man. "It would take at least a day to identify and capture the right man for such a case. The weather and the lack of proper resources would make it slower to-,"

"If you're implying that we pulled strings to catch the wrong person who hit my daughter, then you're wrong, Okita-kun. We only volunteered men from our own… company to help out the police, and did nothing else." Umibozu countered, putting a hand on Okita's shoulder.

" _Get. Your. Hands. Off. Of. Me._ "

Gintoki stepped up and bonked Okita's head, warning him not to be rude. He asked Kondou, "And? Where is this so-called culprit?"

"Here." Kondou shoved the man into the room, leading him by his handcuffs.

The teacher sucked in a breath when he saw Okita tense. "No, I didn't tell you to bring him inside _here_ , you stupid gorilla-,"

No one could stop Okita at that moment. The minute he saw the culprit's face and realized that it was _him_ – the person who was responsible for hurting Kagura – he lost it. It was like something had snapped inside of him, and he ran at the man, his fist landing first-hand in a straight punch.

He couldn't stop himself from continuing to land blows on the man. He hit him – scraping his hand on the man's teeth; almost broke his thumb by shattering the man's nose and wouldn't stop until blood burst from his knuckles and the man's face had gone red and blue from bruises and cuts.

By the time the man had gone to his knees, unconscious from the shock, Okita was dragged back by both Hijikata and Gintoki, who grabbed him tightly.

He flailed with raw strength, trying to get at his objective, " _Let me go, damn it! He_ -,"

" _He_ is going to _die_ if you don't stop, Sougo." Hijikata said, gripping his arm in warning. "And _that_ would be called murder."

"Calm down, Okita-kun. Kagura-chan's not dead yet. We don't want her to wake up to finding out that you'd gone to jail for such a petty man like that, right?" Gintoki added, holding his other arm in a firm lock.

The two only released Okita when they figured he was calm enough, and long after Kondou had dragged the perpetrator back outside and called for medical attention.

"If you're angry to that extent, then you should have stopped Kagura from acting stupidly. You should have stopped her from acting _weak_." Kamui said, looking down at him. His familiar blue eyes mocked him coldly.

Okita looked back up at the man, glaring with all of his might and about to snap back when Kamui continued, "She was too _weak-hearted_ to ignore someone she hated, and now _she's_ the one who's gotten hurt."

The blonde-light brown teenager opened his mouth in surprise at Kamui's bitter tone and that look he gave to his unconscious sister. It was unnervingly gentle and filled with worry.

Kamui turned back to give a level glare at Okita. "But if she dies because of your stupidity, then no matter what kind of country's laws state about murder and no matter what happens to me, I _will_ kill you."

Okita met Kamui's stare with a sharp look of his own. "If that does happen, then I'll gladly take up that sentence."

The two had been blind to the two shadows that crept up behind them, knocking them hard on the head, and that stuffy atmosphere immediately cleared.

Umibozu glared down at his son and said, "That's enough of that, Kamui."

Gintoki grabbed and physically pulled Okita away from Kamui, muttering, "Don't go making more trouble for me, Okita-kun. Having Kagura as one patient is enough for me as a teacher."

Okita was silent, but he broke out of Gintoki's hold. Glancing over at Kagura, the guilt racked him, twisting him and drowning him. He couldn't say anything to her and couldn't look at her again like this. Ignoring his teacher's protest, he ran out of the room.

Hijikata turned on his heel to go after him when Gintoki grabbed his shoulder and shook his head. "That boy's going to need the time alone, Hijikata-kun. Let him be."

* * *

Running past the people in the hospital and making his way outside, Okita ran into the rainy outside, standing there as if all that water could somehow ease his hurt and guilt.

The cold rain dribbled down his head, down his face, drenching his damp clothes and into every pore of his body. But it couldn't get rid of the blood he saw on his hands and Kagura's still body lying in his arms every time he closed his eyes.

He couldn't get rid of that haunting thought which told him that it was his fault that she was like this. Just like he'd lost his sister – he was going to lose her too.

* * *

 ** _Three months later_**

"Coming by again, Okita-san?"

The nurse at the counter cheerfully raised her voice to say hello to the young teenager, who gave her a small nod in reply. "Have a good visit."

He did not speak to her but nodded again before making his way down the hall. She gave a knowing sigh and returned to the paperwork on the desk. Another nurse asked, "Was that the boyfriend of that patient we have upstairs?"

"Well, who knows. I never got to ask. But he did seem to care about her in that way. I did hear that he nearly beat to death that man who put that girl in the car accident."

"My, my. But after that, she hasn't woken for three months yet, right?"

The nurse gave a nod and another sigh. "Despite that, he's never failed to visit her every day to see how she's doing. Sweet, isn't it?"

"Yes… young love."

Down the hall on the floor upstairs, Okita gave a loud sneeze. Sniffling, he looked around and muttered, "Is someone talking about me again?"

Shrugging, he continued down the hall until he was at the door labeled with Kagura's name and the sign that indicated that it was a private room and forbidden for outsiders to come in without authorization. Not long after the day Kagura was bedridden and hospitalized, Okita had managed to get permission from her father for daily visits and full-on authorization to visit Kagura. Kamui hadn't been too happy about that, but left him alone.

He'd usually visit her after school, alone, and sit down next to her bed and speak to her, just a little.

He'd even brought small gifts, once or twice… no, three to five times, but was always met with the disappointing result of her continuing to sleep in her comatose state.

Three months. Three whole months since…

 _"Brain damage?" everyone echoed in surprise and shock as the doctor nodded._

 _"We've taken scans of her body, and noticed that there were unnatural swellings in a few parts of her brain. It might have been from the shock of the impact when she was hit, or for another reason. Now, these swellings may settle down after-,"_

 _"What are you talking about, brain damage? Does that mean-,"_

 _"Calm down, Pattsuan. The doc's going to explain all that." Gintoki grabbed Shinpachi's brown head and shut him up._

 _"Ahem, so yes. These swellings entail that she's suffered some damage to her brain, and she may not wake up until her body feels that it's time to do so, which explains why she's in a coma. For now… we can only keep an eye out for her condition and see that she doesn't worsen."_

A coma. Kagura was in a coma and had been for three months, with no change to her current state. There was that hope where he knew she had to wake up sooner or later, rather than never doing so at all. And so he would wait.

He'd wait until she would wake up so he could apologize, regardless of when that would happen.

As was usual, Okita sat down next to the chair beside Kagura's bed. The machines beside her beeped at that same, monotone beep, but there were a lot less wires, and her oxygen mask had been removed as well. Her shoulder length hair was spread across the pillow and grown a little longer, now reaching past her collarbone. She looked as if she was having a peaceful dream.

'A never-ending dream… what are you dreaming about, China?' he stared at her with his face in his hand. He noted for the 90th+time, the fact that she continued to sleep without any of those wrinkles in between her eyebrows or frowning.

She was always frowning at him whenever they quarreled and her expression scrunched up, openly expressing her feelings. He liked that she was so honest, even if all that she could show him was anger and irritation. She was so easy to read when she was… awake.

'Except… that time. That one time…'

The fact that she might never wake up was disheartening, and almost crushing. Okita clenched his teeth at his own negativity and continued to wait.

But what if she never did wake up?

"Come back. Please…" he sounded almost desperate as those words slipped out from his lips. "I'm sorry… I'm sorry, Kagura."

* * *

 _"I'm sorry…"_

She couldn't move her fingers, but heard that voice, loud and clear. But it didn't make any sense… _Sorry? Sorry for what?_

 _Who are you?_ She had to open her mouth and reply. She had to… she had to ask…

 _Who… who are you?_

 _"…I'm sorry, Kagura."_

That voice again. She knew that voice… "…Sa…"

* * *

"…dis…t…"

Okita jerked in his seat and bolted up. He was sure that he heard her say something.

"Kagura?" he stood up so suddenly that the chair fell backwards, making a loud clang. "Kagura, are you awake?"

He loomed over her, staring down at her face. Her calm face was scrunching up in between her eyebrows, and her mouth was twisting so that it was open, mouthing something...

"…Sa…dist…" it was a low murmur, a whisper, but he heard it clearly. She was awake, or at the very least, recovered her conscious.

"China, China, can you hear me?" his eyes widened when he saw her begin to cry. What was happening?

"Sadist… O… kita…" the moment she called out his name, her eyelids slowly fluttered open.

Words couldn't describe what he felt at that moment. She was… she was awake. It was like a large burden had been lifted from inside him, replaced by sheer joy and excitement.

Kagura blinked, and a large teardrop fell from her eye as her vision fixated on him.

He opened his mouth to speak to her finally, and tell her how much he was sorry and how much he –

But he could only freeze in shock when she said, "Who are you?"

* * *

 **So... how was it? Angsty enough? This is going to be a two-part short story... putting aside the angst and etc., the next chapter will be more light-hearted^^ U** **ntil then :D**


	10. Amnesia (Part II)

**Sorry for the wait, folks~ I thought I would be able to make it, but I caught a flu for a week or so and was in a comatose state up until Christmas... cry, cry... so I wasn't able to make it in time... but I'm back for New Years^^ Happy 2017, everyone~!**

 **Reviews? And, due to the request I received from Guest-san... the next chapter will be a twist on Taketori Monogatari (Tale of the Bamboo Cutter/Tale of Kaguya-Hime)**

 **Thank you for your review, Guest-san~**

 **Disclaimers: Gintama ain't mine...ㅠㅠ**

* * *

Chapter 10: Amnesia (Part II)

"Amnesia?"

The doctor in charge stuttered a yes to the men looming over him. "We-well… we'll have to see the extent of her amnesia, but… it doesn't seem to be a serious impediment if she remembers everything else except-,"

"What the hell is that about?!" Okita banged his fist on the wall, leaving a small dent when he lowered his fist. "She forgot _me_ – my very existence and you're saying that's _not_ a serious impediment?"

"Be grateful at the very least that she remembers everything and everyone else, young man. She could have forgotten me, her own father and -,"

"Please shut up, Baldy." Though the older adult wasn't the least bit intimidated by the young man, the deathly sadistic glare in those red eyes told him that he should keep quiet for the moment.

The men in the room turned back to the doctor, and the succeeding silence told him that he was to continue. Coughing nervously into his fist, the middle-aged doctor said, "As I've mentioned, the young lady's brain suffered some damage from… the accident, and that caused her coma, and now her amnesia. In the case of amnesia, if it was just normal memory loss incurred with severe physical trauma, it is best to leave it to time or certain events to recur those lost memories. But in Kagura-san's case, it appears that they are not memories, but everything involving a specific person -," the doctor took a quick glance at Okita, who stood nearby, his eyes cold but filled with the shock of this new event. "—and that means… that it involves more than just Kagura-san's physical brain, but her conscious – her psychology itself."

"So you're saying that this amnesia was the result of both physical trauma… which triggered a psychological something in her conscious that made her forget Okita?" Gintoki asked, nudging his glasses up on his nose and looking serious.

"Precisely. It would mean that you, young sir, either meant a lot to that young lady, or was someone who-,"

"—who she wanted to forget." The sandy brown haired student finished for him, his fists in his pockets. His shaking hands betrayed his thoughts and the cool tone he had as he spoke. "I see."

Then without another word, he stepped out of the office.

* * *

As the door closed behind him with a decisive click, the bald haired man and the shaggy silver haired one sighed. "That one is never going to accept all this, hm."

"No. So, doctor, what do we need to do to get Kagura's memories of that sadist back?" the student's teacher turned to the fidgeting doctor. "It's obviously not going to work if we do the bonking on the head thing with a Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong, so you have any medical ideas?"

"Well… as this case involves more than just apparent medical treatment, and is more related with the patient's conscious… I can only say that she somehow resolve things with that young man. There must be a reason why she's forgotten him, and why her own self isn't letting herself remember."

"This isn't an issue where we can do anything but leave it up to those two to solve, huh…" Gintoki mumbled, ignoring Umibozu's grumbling about how Kagura was still too young to be thinking so seriously about another male besides himself. "Well, well, it's time for my sweet tooth to get sweetened up with a bit of strawberry flavored-,"

"And before that sir… we're going to have to discuss the reimbursement for that wall the young man dented."

Gintoki turned to Kagura's father with pleading eyes, but was ignored outright in turn.

* * *

"Damn it, why was I the only one burdened with such troublesome students…" Gintoki muttered, combing fingers through his shaggy hair in frustration. "Both of those brats are going to end up being the death of me as a teacher, honestly…"

Walking down the hallway of the hospital, Gintoki rounded a corner to find a vending machine, where he purchased a bottle of strawberry soda. It wasn't until he felt the invisible fuming waves of irritation coming from right next to the machine that he realized he wasn't alone.

He jumped a little at the sight of his student who was obviously still upset and fuming, but noticed that there was something in those red eyes that hadn't been there before.

"Okita-kun," he started, when Okita interrupted.

"The fact that she's forgotten only me has to mean I was that significant to her, in one way or the other, right, Danna? It's an honor to be thought of so highly, huh." He sounded bitter, even sarcastic, but there was that hopeful gleam in Okita's eyes when he spoke.

Gintoki took a large gulp from his sweet beverage, stared at the young man and laughed out loud. "Okita-kun, you should know her as well as I do – or, at least, half as well as I do. She only thinks of you highly as the rival you are to her; otherwise, it doesn't mean anything else."

The adult's red eyes narrowed the slightest bit when there was no response from Okita, and he remained, quietly observing him. He continued to sip his drink in silence, while the latter seemed deep in thought.

"Ne, Okita-kun. Shouldn't you just give up on teasing her anymore? She doesn't even remember you, after all, so what'll be the point of it all? And wouldn't that just be easier for you – no… for both of you?"

Gintoki startled when Okita let out a chortling guffaw, then began laughing madly, even bending over and shaking to clutch at his stomach.

"So you've finally broken down like a doll-," that sentence went unfinished as Okita's mad laughter stopped.

The teenager stood abruptly, and had neither a depressed face nor a shocked one; neither an angry nor a sad expression. He had the face of the sadist who was planning out the next complex plan to torture his prey. "Well, too bad, since I'm not one that easily gives up. I'm not just going to sit by idly when my favorite toy forgets about her own master, after all."

Leaving those words, Okita left the area, laughing all the while.

Having finished his drink, Gintoki stared at Okita's retreating back, then tossed the empty bottle into the recycling bin. Clicking his tongue, he sighed heavily, "That's obviously going to create a big storm… man, why did I have to have such a bothersome brat as a student?"

But he was smiling wryly as he walked through the hall to get to Kagura's room, relieved. "Well, well… that's the Souichirou-kun that I know."

* * *

It took a few more weeks until Kagura was done with her checkups and discharged. And during that time, she wasn't bothered by that weird sadistic looking depressed guy who she saw when she first woke up. Not even once.

As of the present, however…

Blue met red, and sharp glares met sadistic ones.

"Could you stop doing that, Okita-san?" this was the situation; the very weird, annoying and infuriatingly frustrating situation she was in right now. Kagura glared at the stranger who had continued to throw balls of crumpled paper, pencils and erasers at the back of her head… for each and every class he had with her.

"Doing what?" he smirked at her, balling another piece of paper and poising. That smirk was irritating. She didn't know why despite him being someone she didn't even know, something bubbled up like a boiling pit of hatred and heat inside her. It hurt, and it was annoying, and she didn't know why.

Adjusting her glasses, she snapped, "Stop throwing those paper balls at me. Do you want me to punch your head off-,"

He smirked again and threw the paper ball, which she dodged. "Then why don't you actually do that, instead of using your words only?"

That was just irritating. The fact that he would assume that she was such a person was rather insulting. "Why would I hit someone I don't even know? Even Gin-chan would disapprove me doing that! So just *bleep* off before I really hurt you!"

"Huuuh."

His next attempt to harass her came at long and swift turns. At any point and every corner, he seemed to be lurking around and pounced at her with traps, tricks and extreme harassment.

She was accidentally lured into the 50 Shade's room that he had prepared, and lamented at the fact that she would no longer be a pure bride. She was irked by his statement that he would take her in.

She almost dropped into a fifty foot pit complete with spikes and smoke bombs at the end of a hall, and seriously doubted as to whether that was legal or not in a public sort of environment. She grit her teeth when she saw him comment that her senses had dulled enough to actually set the trap off.

She tripped fifteen times on the way from her homeroom class to P.E., art and music class, Home Ec., and her breaks to and from the bathroom. Her knees ended up being scabbed, and she was bruising quickly on her elbows. She almost snapped when she heard him say that he was disappointed to see that she didn't get her skull cracked open like the time from the accident.

She had to also endure his incessant torture of seeing him run away with all her homework for each class, to which she ended up with harsh warnings from each teacher, though they seemed to understand her situation. Gin-chan didn't, and instead, knocked her head and said that she had guts to bring in her personal quarrels into the classroom.

And it was in fourth period, that he had crossed another line. He actually had the guts in using her favorite sukonbu snack being stomped on, ripped apart, burnt over the oil-lamps used in chemistry, and being fed to Elizabeth. It took all she had to not lunge at him and tear out his innards, then run away with the sukonbu he had.

Why didn't she do just that? Well, that was because she didn't know him…

So was it her imagination when she saw that pained expression, quickly replaced by one of irritation, every time she ignored him after a prank? Why did she feel _weird_ in turn when she saw him make that face? She didn't understand why he was so persistent on harassing her. If they really were acquaintances, and 'good' ones, like her classmates told her, then why was he acting this way? Well, then again, though she was good friends with people like Shinpachi, she didn't exactly treat him like a person, but the megane he was, so that might make sense… but that wasn't the case with someone she didn't know.

 _"Well, that's actually normal for you guys."_ Was what Shinpachi and Anego said…

"So, him hitting on me literally is… normal-aru?!" she muttered so herself as she opened her favorite box of sukonbu on the rooftop. It was lunch time, so she figured that she would be able to avoid that weird Okita if she was there. "I mean, I know that I'm quite the looker with my beauty and all-aru, but…"

 _"You could never beat the other, since you guys were more or less equal to each other."_ Was what that Gorilla and Mayora said…

"That weird-ass sadist being my equal and me never beating him… seriously-aru?!" she muttered again, glaring at the fading bruises on her arm from the accident, and bit into the thick piece of sukonbu, relishing its sour taste on her tongue. "What kind of a guy is that guy if I can't beat him to the ground-aru? A do-S masochist who refuses to give up?"

"That would be a do-S Kaiser of the Planet of Sadists, China."

Kagura flinched at the voice, and slowly turned around to see the annoying prick of a person. "What the hell are you doing here-aru-,"

He smacked her with the back of a notebook as he settled down next to her, a bag of what looked like food bought from a convenience store. "Don't talk with your mouth full, China. That disgusting habit of yours hasn't changed since you lost your memory."

She glared at him as she finished chewing, then snapped, "I didn't lose my memory-aru! I only forgot you. And besides, if you're as important as you think you are, then why would my own self forget you at all, huh?!"

Kagura saw his fingers twitch and his expression turn to stone, and realized that she might have said too much. "I—I'm sorry. That crossed the line."

Heavy silence filled the air, and she pulled her knees up and sat there silently. It was sure enough that she didn't know this person, but to be outright inconsiderate would be… horrible of her. Regardless of how he was annoying, he still was a person with—

"Pfft." Wait… did he… just laugh? Just when she was being all serious and proper? "Pfft-ha, ha… ha, ha, ha, ha, ahhahahahaha!"

She stared at the person who had doubled over, laughing deliriously, wondering whether she should call someone to take him to the insane asylum. "Oi, what the hell are you laughing at-aru? I'm sure I didn't say anything funny-aru."

"No, your apology was a funny thing in itself." He finally seemed to stop laughing, and was gathering his breath as he wiped a stray tear. She could feel the blood pounding in her ears, indignant and even feeling hurt from this stranger's attitude. Before she could say anything, he continued, "The old China never apologized to me. Ever. That tells me how much of a girl you actually are, and I thought that was a little funny."

"Huh?! What are you-,"

"Scratch that. You weren't the kind of girl who would go around being nice to everyone. You have an enormous appetite which can't be filled with ten bowlfuls of rice, but at the most, with ten rice pots. You love eating eggs over rice every lunch, with sukonbu every day, and you love eating anything for free and filling yourself with sweets. You never pay attention during class, and use your pink bunny shaped mechanical pencil to tap on the desk or place it up to your mouth, daydreaming. When the bell rings, you're always the first to turn to your friends and invite them out for lunch, and you always step out of the classroom with your right foot in one leap."

Even she was suddenly startled at the change of tone in his voice. Flustered, even, as he stepped closer to her and continued to point out each of her habits. "W-what are you-!"

"Gin-Danna-sensei's your surrogate father, and family in every way, and the Megane Shinpachi, his flat-chested gorilla sister are both precious to you. You barely tolerate Hijikata-san and Kondou-san because they're your classmates, but you respect them as the persons they are. You hate Hijikata's way of putting that disgusting crap over his food all the time, and never hesitate to lash out at Kondou-san if it means helping your 'Anego'. You never cry unless you've eaten Tabasco with cake, and never show your tears in front of others so easily."

What was he trying to achieve by listing out things anyone could have known about her, if they were classmates? She couldn't control the sudden pounding of her heart. A strange, almost heavy pounding began to ring inside her head, making it ache. "What—what are you saying, how did you know-,"

"You've lost your mother from an illness, and have spent years holding down the fort you used to call a family at home. The only reason you're staying all alone in that house of yours, always waiting for your good-for-nothing father and brother to come back is because you value them still as family, and to respect your mother. You said you promised her you would keep the family together, no matter what, and that's what you've been doing so far."

He was so close to her that she could see his pulse quivering quickly at the crook under his jaw-line. Something like dread coated each of her words, and she murmured, "How… who… why do you… of all people… k-know that…?"

She couldn't stop shivering at this revelation, and jumped when he grabbed her shoulders, staring straight into her eyes, as if searching for something. "I know. I _know_ , not because I'm a stalker, and definitely of all things, your stalker, but because you told me. Kagura, _you_ told me on that day – _the day_ -,"

* * *

 ** _Approximately five months ago, in Kabukicho-cemetery…_**

 _"Why the hell do I have to go and search for that brat over here… why the hell did she wander into a cemetery, of all places?!" Okita muttered as he looked around the empty courtyard, shivering slightly in the still coldness of the beginning of March._

 _It had been just another day between him and his arch-rival/enemy, as they moved up yet another grade in the high school. He'd known her for a long time, but he didn't think that she would act on such drastic measures when his mouth slipped, and he bad-mouthed her mother._

 _It hadn't been intentional at all, and he hadn't meant any actual ill will towards Kagura's dead mother, but it ended up in the worst brawl between them, and her running away, despite their homeroom teacher chasing after._

 _It was also found that there were several cans of alcohol missing from the school's fridge in the teacher's lounge._

 _"That idiot… I can't believe she had the time to grab those cans and still run off. I bet she didn't even read the labels before opening them, that stupid moron can't even read kanji properly…" he said, and idly kicked at a stray tree. The late snow from the tree's branches shook, then fell in big clumps on his head, and also solicited a huge yelp from the opposite side._

 _"China? I found you, you big-," shaking off the snow from his hair, he stepped around to find her crouching down and cradling a huge bottle, and snow piled on her bright head._

 _"Whut the herrlll was… that… ah. It's the do-S BAKA Sadist." And it appeared that she was drunk off her cradle as well._

 _What was he supposed to do in this situation…? Even he, who was renown outside of school and loved by girls of all ages for his bishounen face and dealt with them verrrry well, he didn't know how to treat someone like her as a real girl… especially when she was drunk._

 _He crouched down next to her, his face scrunched up in a frown. "… Oi, China. Let's go home."_

 _"Whut the herll is this do-S bastuuurd talking *hic*… about… I don't… I don't have a home…"_

 _"Don't have a home? Then what the heck do you call the building you live in?"_

 _"A home… *hic*… isn't something you call a… building, stuuupid. Home… is where the heart is…*hic*." She was definitely drunk._

 _"How much did you drink?" Okita muttered, even though it was of no use. She wasn't listening, but squeezed her arms around the liquor bottle as tears welled up in her eyes. "Y-you, no, stop, don't start crying of all-!"_

 _"Home… isn't a place! *hic* It's… home is… home is family." As if frustrated, Kagura pound the ground with a small fist as she continued in her drunken stupor, "Home is family, but… my family… isn't here. *hic* Papi is always gone and never writes b…ack… and Bakamui is… never here either… *hic*… and… and, Mami…"_

 _Kagura turned her gaze towards the big stone marker in front of her as she sniffled. "… and Mami… is here, all alone."_

 _"China… you…"_

 _"Mami… is all alone right now, like I am, so I have to… to keep her company here. *hic* If I… if I stay here and keep 'home' from falling apart like… like… snow!" she suddenly looked up at the white above her and smiled. "If I do that… then, someday… we can all be together… again."_

 _He couldn't do anything but keep silent and listen to her. "Ne, Sadist… you Baka-Saaaaadisttttt."_

 _"Whaddaya want, Baka-China."_

 _She grinned at him with red cheeks and bared teeth. "But you know what?"_

 _"What."_

 _Her voice cracked as her composure cracked. She was crying now, and her sentences came out in rushed fragments, almost unintelligible. "Y'know that… Mami is… gone, and it hurts. Papi and Bakamui are men, and they're stupid, and not back… never coming *huic, hic* back… *huic*, and it… it hurts! My family… my family… they're… they're not here! Where's… where's Mami when… it hurt? When you hit me, where was… where was my mother to rub my head and… *hic*… kiss my booboo?"_

 _Despite the whole situation, Okita had to say… that he understood all that. It hurt like hell when he lost his own sister, and a gaping hole was left inside him. Losing the only one he had as family and becoming all alone in this world… He only stood by and endured because he had to._

 _She was just like him, in that respect. Everyone had their own burden, and this was one he could share with her._

 _And yet, she was different from him. She had hands that she could reach out to, but it was even crueler because they didn't reach out in turn. It was worse than having no one at all._

 _"You have me." It was going to be fine. She wasn't going to remember this, so it would be alright to say something like this, right? "You have me around. You have Danna, Megane, Gorillia-woman, that weird Elizabeth-Doll, the future terrorist, Hijikata-san and Kondou-san. You have that *bleep* ninja around and 'what's-his-face' guy around. The tsunpo, blondie and one-eye are all around, too. You have something better than your stupid Papi and Bakamui here."_

 _She had stopped crying and now was staring up at him, listening. "You…?"_

 _"Yeah. You have everyone, who are better than just blood-related family. You have…"_

 _"I have… *hic*… I have you…?" she gave him a goofy smile and giggled to herself. "I have… Baka-Sadist… I have… Baka-Sadist here, Mami. I have…" she suddenly stood up and yelled, "I HAVE BAKA-SADIST WITH ME! BAKA-SADIST IS MINE!"_

 _"Oi, don't go around yelling that out loud! And what the hell are you saying, who the hell said-,"_

 _She was drunk and he was cold, but both of them… were smiling that day._

* * *

"I… I… I can't…" perhaps, for the first time in her life, Kagura was speechless. Speechless at this situation, at herself, and most of all, at this person, who was now baring her own memory to her in a whole river.

"Afterwards, you didn't come to school for a while, since you'd caught a cold." The lunch bell had yet to ring, but quite some time had passed since Okita had found her on the rooftop. He had stepped back to give her space, and his voice was quiet. "It didn't seem like you remembered the incident."

"I…" ever since he had been talking to her, the small pounding in her head had turned into a roar, now simmering between her eyelids and making her feel dizzy.

"And plus, you were heavy to carry back."

She couldn't help it. It was like it was programmed into her verbal system. She sputtered, "Y-you do-S baka!"

The moment those words left her lips, she felt a strange, nostalgic tugging at the back of her head. Had she… had she said this before? To this person?

"Sadist…" she tried once more, and without a doubt, there was that nostalgia… "Sa…dist…?"

He gave her a faint smile, as if he was glad to actually hear that. At that small change in his depressed expression, her heart skipped a beat, quite literally as her headache pounded madly. "It seems like that part of you is the same, even after you lost your memory."

"W-what's… with… that…"

"They do say that the body remembers even if the heart forgets. You've been saying that for quite a long time, so your body must remember quite well."

It clicked. "Is… is that why you've been playing those pranks on… me…?"

He gave out a dry laugh, putting his hands in his pockets. "Was that so hard to figure out, Baka-China? Well, considering that you have bad grades, that's not surprising."

"But—but why would you… go to such a length to-?"

Okita was talking to himself, obviously ignoring her question. "Well, I suppose that I haven't tried this approach yet. It's most commonly used, and I've been putting it off. Better now than never, though."

"What are you trying to-," he couldn't possibly be thinking of-

He pulled on her arm, yanking her forward. "I'm going to do _this_."

He kissed her.

He kissed her for a long, long time. He was kissing her quite firmly but gently. It was very, very warm. So much so that the autumn wind felt soothing on her skin. His hands were caressing her skin and his arms were holding her up against him. The kiss solicited shocks of pleasure throughout her body, and all the strength left her legs. This was too shocking – almost too much for her to handle all at once.

But in that simple kiss, she sensed something close to… desperation.

'I… I want to remember. But… why… why can't I remember him? What is this person to me…?'

It didn't take so long for her to pass out.

* * *

"Is it just a habit now for you two end up in this sort of situation, Okita-kun?" Gintoki glanced up at Okita, who was standing beside a comatose Kagura. "I mean you somehow getting her into this sort of state, and you looking down at her like some pathetic dog."

"That will be enough of that, Gintoki. I bet he feels guilty enough already." Tsukuyo, who was the health teacher in the nurse's office said as she glanced over at Kagura's papers. "It doesn't seem like she's suffering from a cold or the usual effects of a fever, but rather the side effects from her accident. She had amnesia, no?"

Gintoki sighed heavily and clenched his hair as if he wanted to tear it out. "Seriously… Okita-kun, what the hell did you do to her this time?"

"Nothing that hurt her." Okita muttered.

"You're still trying to get her memory back with those pranks of yours? Do you really think that it's going to work at that level of a-,"

"I kissed her, and she blacked out. This was the only one that had any sort of effect on her."

The clipboard dropped from Tsukuyo's fingers as her face turned red. "You KISSED her?!"

"Ah, shut it, you blondie. Kagura's going to wake up." Gintoki snapped irritably, and Tsukuyo turned her dark gaze at him before she flicked out her kunai. The next moment, Gintoki was dragged out of the room by his hair, and screams echoed throughout the school building.

With the interferences gone, Okita took a seat on the chair which Gintoki had been previously occupying.

Then he buried his red face into his hands and bit his lip, thinking back to the school's rooftop.

It had really been a last sort of effort on his part to get her memory back. But it had also been a sort of kiss that expressed both his pent-up emotions of both romance and angst that he'd felt over the months she had been comatose. There had been no sort of lie in that kiss, just him exposing himself vulnerably in order to recover what he had lost.

But if… if she didn't wake up with her memories of him…

If that were to happen in the worse-case scenario… then…

He would have no choice but to really give up on recovering her memory, and let it die as just that.

"Nnn… mmnn…" she was already stirring.

"China? You awake now?" Okita got up to hover over her, feeling both dread and gladness to see that she was alright this time. "Oi, you-,"

The moment she opened her eyes, he definitely did not expect for her to punch him straight in the face and send him spiraling backwards.

"Damn it, OW! What the _hell_ are you doing, you stupid China-piglet?!" feeling groggy, Okita clutched his aching nose and glared at the girl, who—

"That's my line-aru, you stupid, stupid moronic Sadist! Y-you have—you sure had guts to do whatever you wanted, including ki-kissing me while I-,"

At that, it didn't take it long for Okita to leap back up and clutch her shoulders. "China, you remember me now?!"

She glared up at him, then looked away, her cheeks growing pink. "And if I said I didn't? What are you going to do-aru?"

Okita smiled so widely to himself that it almost hurt. He recognized _this_ Kagura. His Kagura was back. "So all you needed was just a kiss from your master, eh?"

"Who the hell are you calling my master-aru?!"

He lowered his voice, leaning forward so that his breath stirred her bangs. "You're going to go through another round of disciplining. For a stupid *bleep* to forget her master… that's no light sin, after all. You better prepare yourself, _China_."

"H-hold on-aru! I didn't say that I didn't remember you BAKA-Sadist! I just-,"

She wasn't able to finish herself as he slanted his mouth over hers again, firmly. However, this time she was ready for him, and thrust out her fist, slamming it into his chin and flipping him over in a 360 spin-fall to the ground.

Groaning, Okita glared up at Kagura, who was now the color of a bright tomato. Despite her acting as such, he supposed that sort of tsundere part of her hadn't changed.

He snorted as he got up on his feet and wiped the dust off his pants. "Don't give me that face, China. It's your own fault for liking me."

Instead of kicking him, she threw the pillow behind her at him. "Who says so?! Aren't _you_ the idiot who's in love with me?!"

Okita smiled broadly, crossing his arms. "Yes, I am."

"Wha—what?!"

"I've been waiting for you. Waiting for you to come back to me so I could say it, China," she flinched as she noticed the change in his voice. Uh-oh. This was headed to a serious direction, again.

He took a huge breath before saying, "I'm sorry for being unable to stop playing pranks on you back then, and from now."

Wait, what?!

She was dumfounded. But then again, that was so like him. "That's not an apology-aru!"

The high schooler smirked at her. "Who says it isn't? I apologized properly, didn't I? Ah, if there's one thing that I won't ever apologize for, it's probably falling for you. I love you, China."

And _that_ , was what lay in the end of Kagura's amnesia.

A happy ending, in itself…

"Go and die, SADIIIIST!"

…or not, some might say.

The sort of confession he had for her proved too much for her to handle yet, apparently. But that was alright. After all, now that she remembered everything, the two of them would have all the time they would need to take the next step.

* * *

 **So, how was this one? It wasn't exactly the sort of ending I had been thinking of, but it turned out like this... bleh. The story has a mind of its own...**

 **But y'all tell me. Leave reviews and let me know~**

 **Ah, and on a side note, just because it was in this chapter... just becaause Kagura was drunk in this one doesn't mean I support minors drinking alcohol even for the sake of fun in a story... or in real life. Stay away from the bottle (or can) until you're of age, youngsters! Actually, it's better if you stay away from it at all... look at Gin-chan, for example.**

 **See you in the next chapter!**


	11. China-hime no Monogatari (Part I)

**As was requested, this chapter's a twist on Taketori no Monogatari, A.K.A., Kaguya-hime no Monogatari/Tale of the Princess Kaguya. The title should be enough to see what this story's about... hehehe... Happy Valentine's, everyone^^**

 **Thank you for your reviews, Rinfantasy-san and C.A.M.E.O.-san, and the others who've left comments^^ Thank you for all of your encouragements**

 **REviewiiinngg, pleeeaaase~**

 **Disclaimers: Gintama wa watashi no mono jya arimasen**

* * *

Chapter 11: China-Hime no Monogatari (Part 1)

A long long time ago… there once lived an old, bankrupt and lazy, good-for-nothing silver haired curly head whose name was Taketori no Gintoki. He lived with his wife(?)/subordinate(?)/megane named Shin Baba, his mother-in-law/landlady Otose, and their pet, Catherine.

Though Gintoki was a bamboo cutter by trade, he did nothing to help out the household but spent all his time trying to rot out his teeth with strawberry sweets and his eyes with porn. Fed up with this attitude of his, Gintoki's wife(?) and mother-in-law promptly kicked him out of the house (literally).

He spent about three days outside until the door opened a creak for him, and his mother-in-law's grumpy, irritated voice croaked out, "Don't you dare come back until you find the proper amount of money you owe me, you hear?!"

Grumbling, the old, childless bamboo cutter went decided to do what he had to do. As he was a bamboo cutter, he entered the bamboo grove nearby and wandered, looking for a good piece to cut down. After a while however, he came across a mysterious, shining light near a huge, thick bamboo tree.

Figuring that it was a light sparkling on a bag of money, he walked towards it and found that it was not a bag of money, but a sparkling bright light coming out of the inside of the bamboo itself.

"Huh." He unsheathed his old bokuto and took one slice at the root.

Cutting it open, he peered inside to find an infant the size of his thumb, then sighed.

"What the hell am I going to do with a gaki like this?"

As if responding to the first voice she heard, the small infant opened her eyes and peered up at him with large, deep blue eyes. Though struck by the strange color of them and the gurgling plea of the infant, he turned on his heel, muttering, "No way, no way. It's enough that Pach-san and the old hag think I'm a worthless neet… if they figure that this kid's a love child, then that's the end of my Ketsuno Ana collection!"

But before he could take another step, he was kicked forward by a small foot and slammed into the bamboo grove in front of him.

"Where the hell do you think you're going-aru?! And leaving a beautiful, forsaken princess like me here all by myself with no food, huh?!"

Rubbing his bruised head which had a growing bump, the old bamboo cutter turned around carefully to see a young child of about three years old standing there, darned in a full kimono garb of extraordinary colors. Light was still shining from the bamboo stalk from where she had appeared from, and it shone from her long vermillion hair, which trailed down behind her in an elegant cape.

"…?!" he could say nothing but just stare at the beautiful, yet extremely crude and badmouthed girl before he was smacked backwards with the long kimono sleeve of hers.

Despite her young looks or her aura, she had quite the strong sleeve-smack. "What the-!"

"Oi, you slave. Where is my food? I'm starving here-aru. Do you think that it's okay to leave a bishoujo like me here to grovel for her meal? Go and get something for me to eat!"

In such a period, most of the time, an old childless bamboo cutter like Gintoki would have rejoiced to find such * _ahem_ * beautiful * _ahem_ * child, called her a gift from the heavens and taken her home to raise her as his daughter…

"Who the hell do you think you are?! Knocking your life's savior onto the ground and treating him as a slave, for goodness sakes', what kind of a pit did you grow up in? Didn't your parents not-," the bamboo cutter wasn't able to finish his sentence as the girl plopped down on the ground and started to throw a tantrum.

"Food, food, food, food, food! I want to eaaaaaat! I'm hungry, hungry, hungry-aru!"

…but in this case, it was the total opposite of what the bamboo cutter really wanted to do. He didn't want to keep this ridiculously childish and rude 'princess', wherever the hell she came from – much less try to feed her from his already small stock of food at home. But he really didn't have much of a choice but to grudgingly put her in his bamboo-woven basket and carry her back, long rivers of tears streaming from his face.

"What the hell did I do to receive such a blessing from Hell?" he muttered.

"Oi, you good-for-nothing curly head, I'm from the Moon, y'know. Not Hell. And I have a name-aru!"

Taketori no Gintoki, however, wasn't listening to her at all. Sooner or later, he would remember that she did say such words and regret it to death.

* * *

It wasn't easy to convince his mother-in-law and his wife(?) that (1) he did not kidnap a real princess from some mansion; (2) he did not create a love child by *bleep*ing some royal lady from a rich family; (3) he did not buy an Oiran from the red light district and make them bankrupt. But after half a day of arguing and quite a lot of crying from the girl herself, the family had decided to keep the strange girl and raise her as their daughter.

It definitely wasn't going to be easy. The young girl, apparently, had an enormous appetite that could only be appeased by at least ten servings of rice and at least 50 egg toppings with soy sauce. It took quite a lot of money to keep her satisfied, and she quarreled with her adoptive mother and father each and every day. Her adoptive grandmother, Otose and the pet Catherine soon moved into the house next door to avoid further clashes and live a little more peacefully.

"You brat with a black-hole for a stomach, stop eating so much!"

"What are you saying, stupid Gin-chan (for that was her nickname for her adoptive father)! I'm a growing girl-aru! Are you trying to starve me, huh?! I'm going to the PTA for this-aru!"

"Do what you want! Then maybe we won't have egg on rice for three meals a day, for 31 days a month! And maybe we can actually use the money I earn to play and eat better!"

"What are you saying, I'm a total blessing in this household! Just having me here will earn you points because of my dazzling beauty-aru!"

None of the girl's arguments made any sense, and only exacerbated the debate between the three of them. However, Taketori no Gintoki found that whenever he went to the bamboo grove to (actually) do work, he would find inside the stalk of bamboo large nuggets of gold. Other days he found layers of silk and kimonos, enough to fill his small house with bright colors.

It was without question that he and his family soon became rich, and the arguments about the main menu for dinner or creaky, leaky ceilings and floors faded away. Their meager meals soon became large feasts held in great gusto each day, and their shabby hut was replaced by a large mansion.

The young girl he picked up and named Kagura (it wasn't any of their ideas, which ranged from Ketsuna, Ottoki, Furako, Tamakin, Pachiko, but from Kagura's own introduction) also grew from the small child she was to a young woman of ordinary height, but extraordinarily dazzling beauty (it may also have just been due to the fact that there was no other fair-skinned, vermillion haired, cerulean eyed woman in the entire land).

Rumors of this beautiful _hime_ soon spread throughout the kingdom, despite the bamboo cutter's efforts to dampen them (It was really only a ploy on Gintoki's part in order to garner suitors quickly and marry the girl off. After all, what's more alluring than trying to get a girl that's hard to get? Of course, he didn't hate his adoptive daughter, but he just liked the money and attention she brought. Being a dirt-poor worker may lead to such behavior, so no one could blame him), catching the ear and eye of five very _particular_ , very _peculiar_ people.

* * *

Catching wind of the rumors of Kagura's beauty, five men of extreme opulence and power (and a many other sorts of good and bad traits) came to Taketori no Gintoki's residence to ask for Kagura-hime's—

"—submissive masochism."

"—play time."

"—services in the country's protests."

"—bondage."

"—help to overthrow the current Emperor."

Gintoki summarized their basic requests to the princess. "They all want your hand in marriage, Kagura-hime."

Behind him, the five suitors all snapped, "That's not what I said."

Taketori no Gin smiled and said again, "They all want you as their bride, it seems. My, my, what an enthusiastic group of young men."

"Oi, what the hell are you trying to pull here, you rotten old man? Are you deaf or something? I'm pretty sure I said I want this *bleep* to submit to me, not get into some god-forsaken marriage with her." This came from the young sandy-blonde haired man with eyes glinting crimson in the light of the lanterns. He was dressed in the most fabulous state of wear, and obviously surpassed the others in terms of opulence in looks.

"I am sure that I made myself clear in the letter I sent to you, Gintoki-dono." Said the Minister of the Right (who was also nicknamed Shogun ShigeShige). "My younger sister wanted a play mate, so I thought that a young woman of Kagura-Hime's age would prove to be most helpful." This was the guy who looked most like a leader fit to rule a nation. Taketori no Gin could just feel the 'honorable-person' waves from him.

"If marriage is the only way for me to procure Kagura-hime's services in the army, then that will be what I will do. But, is marriage really the only way? I really do prefer a married woman in contrast to an unmarried one, and in terms of a strange mysterious creature at hand, I already do have Elizabeth… hmm…" this string of comments came from a long haired guy who called himself a Prince, but was obviously looking well suited for something like assembling a revolutionary group.

"I can't speak for myself, but for the one who's actually interested in you, Kagura-hime. But marriage is something that I will stay away from. Especially to someone like you." This came from a very stern looking man with v-shaped bangs and a frowning face. He looked as if he came from a warrior's family, as he had a katana and a wakizashi by his side, though in extremely formal wear.

"I want the head of the Emperor and the end of this world. If I had your hand in it, it would go even more easily." The last comment did not include any sort of complaint about marriage, but it was obvious that this suitor's affections weren't the least bit affectionate either. In fact, he looked like he wanted to just get up and sell her off if he could. He was dressed darkly in a beautiful kimono, but sat languidly on the floor with his legs stretched out, had only one eye and was smoking from a kiseru. Anyone could look at him and surmise that he was extremely shady.

"Now, now, let's not all argue over Kagura-hime, eh?" the old bamboo cutter obviously couldn't read the mood, and the five suitors glared at him.

"Anyway, so why isn't the princess talking at all? Is she dumb? Cat got her tongue?"

"Well, well, it isn't proper for her to do so with this many young men who she's never met, no?"

"Hm. That is true enough," said ShigeShige. "Then for now, I will withdraw-,"

"Well, well, I didn't say that. I believe that I just need a little time to consult with the princess on… the matter of you princes' proposals…"

"Uwah, this guy's making a super con man, shady face." muttered the man with the v-shaped bangs. "He's obviously just trying to plan something out to rip us off… damn it, why did I have to deal with this instead of Yamazaki…"

With that, the old bamboo cutter disappeared behind the formal drawing curtain, and several sets of tea and snacks came out in succession for the guests.

"Anyhow, what's taking so long?" complained the Prince with the long hair. "Did he get lost in the toilet or something on the way?"

"What the hell are you trying to put me to-aru, you stupid Gin-chan?!" Kagura yelled at the old man, who was looking a little apologetic.

"Now, now, Kagura, we can't just send these fine young men away without squeezing what we can out from them, can we?"

"Uwah, you sound like a shady con man trying to use me-aru. I'm going to sue you for child-abuse and labor, you stupid feet-stinking diabetic Ketsuno-Ana otaku." She snapped, glaring with her arms crossed. She was dressed in the most luxurious shades of gold, red, blue, green, purple and white, wrapped in layers of silks. Her hair trailed down behind her, and though her face was without the formal makeup worn in formal courts, Taketori no Gintoki would never have imagined that this beautiful young woman was the same small brat he found in the bamboo grove…

"Like hell I'm going to get married to anyone-aru! They can all go and rot in the holes I make!"

… or so he would have liked to think. But that was difficult, especially when she had such a bad attitude, and an even worse way of speaking.

"No, no, I didn't say that you had to _marry_ any of them, Kagura-hime."

"Gin-chan, you're making a really mischievous face-aru. What are you, some evil magistrate?" she stared at him with narrowed eyes.

"But this is going to be difficult… if you don't want to handle any of them, and if we want to squeeze all the money we can out of them, then we have to resort to a certain tactic…"

"Yep, he's totally ignoring me and trying to make me out as an exhibition-aru…" Kagura sighed, and unfolded her arms and said, "I do have a plan-aru. Wanna hear? Ah, but if we go with it, then you're going to have to stay out of my plans until the entire ordeal is over-aru. Okay-aru?"

"… What are you trying to plan?"

This time, Kagura gave an evil smile that rivaled Gin's sadistic, con man smile. "Fufufufu… I've always wanted toys of my own, y'know…"

"… Kagura-chan, you're making a really bad expression there, y'know. Shi-ShinBaba-,"

"You brought that child in to our home, Gin-san, so you take responsibility for her. It's your fault that she grew up like this, anyhow." Was what was said. Unfortunately, from then on, Gintoki would receive no help from the old lady(?)/megane (of course, one might say that Gintoki was reaping what he had sown when he brought the young hime back to his home).

* * *

The man behind the drawn blinds and screens gave a guffaw, "For that cheeky little _hime_ to do such a thing… hahahahhaha!"

"Mi-Mikado-sama?" the courtier who was outside the screens prompted nervously. Their newly crowned Emperor, whose name was forbidden on the lips of all who lived in the land, was an enigmatic sort of ruler. He was fickle at times with wavering tempers, had a taste for all things interesting and loved imposing his whims on other people to get a laugh out of them. For such a ruler to laugh at the moment like a maniac, it meant that the news which the courtier brought was going to be of quite some interest, for quite some time.

The poor courtier was sweat dropping, and earnestly praying for the next victim of his Emperor's interest…

"Kagura-hime, eh? She's an interesting little brat. After going through all that trouble to see her, she only sent away her suitors with impossible tasks. She really means to make a fool out of all of them, no?"

"W-who would dare to do so…"

The Emperor burst out into laughter again, startling the courtiers and servants nearby, with their heads bowed to the ground. "That little girl would, it seems. Ah… what were those tasks, again?"

"Hai – the task given to the first Prince, Okita Soushi, a relative of yours, Mikado-sama, who was to bring back the begging bowl of the Buddha from India and use it to beg for food, and only if the bowl was filled to the brim with foods that the princess desired, would she accept…"

"The second?" the Emperor interrupted.

"The second… who was Shogun ShigeShige, and your Minister on the Right… he was given the task of bringing a jeweled branch from the mythical island of Horai, and make it… make it edible without harming any of the jewels..."

"The third?"

"The third task was given to Prince Katsura-,"

"Zura?"

The courtier nodded, "Hai, that is his nickname, by which he is well known."

"Ah. Continue."

"Yes, Mikado-sama. He was given the task of bringing back the legendary robe of the fire-rat of China, which is rumored to be of the same brilliant color of Kagura-hime's… hair, and… and to make u-underclothes from it…"

"Pfft. The audacity of that brat…" the Emperor chuckled, and waved a hand. "Go on."

"The fourth task was given to Hijikata Toshiro, the Daimyo of Edo Province, and the General of the Imperial Army… it was to bring back the colored jewel from a dragon's neck, and… to…"

"Well?"

"Pardon me, Mikado-sama, it is beyond my lips to say such a humiliating thing, and especially of Hijikata-sama…"

"Spit it out, or I'll have your tongue cut out for doing me a disservice." His liege's voice was ice-cold, evident of the fact that he did not allow impertinent people to serve him.

"… Yes. It was to take that colored jewel, and to come back to the princess whilst wearing it as a… m-mouth… gag…"

This solicited another string of laughter from the Emperor. "So that little princess, who's lived a sheltered life, has an SM fetish? And for the victim to be Hijikata? Ah, that is something I would have to see… Interesting… interesting indeed."

"I was told that it was under her foster father's suggestion that she present such a task…"

"No matter. Like father, like daughter, they say. Even if those two are not blood-related, there are things such as character traits that can be passed on, should the two live together for long enough. Resume."

"The last task was for the Prince Takasugi Shinsuke… which was to bring back a cowry shell from a swallow's nest…"

The Emperor hmmed, sounding surprised, "That sounds rather tame."

"… and eat it alive."

Laughter filled the courtyard of the Emperor's palace, and only died down after quite some time. "As expected, she places yet another difficult task… given the tempers and temperament of that Takasugi, I doubt that he will do such a thing readily… what a suggestion to give him! Ah, if only I could see that sight… there's no way that deadly bastard, who obviously hates me and this family of mine, will give up his pride and eat such a filthy thing… hahahaha!"

The young courtier shivered at the tone in the Emperor's voice. It was true that Takasugi Shinsuke had had an agenda up his sleeves against the Emperor for a very long time. But he always managed to slip away each time with lack of evidence and witnesses, and masqueraded in the government and the court, despite being a dangerous person.

"Mikado-sama?"

"Keep your tabs on each of Kagura-hime's suitors, and on that young *bleep* herself. Don't let anything past your sight or hearing about her, and report to me directly, daily."

"Yes, Mikado-sama." It was impossible to figure out what was going on in this Emperor's enigmatic brain. Thus all the courtier could do as a retainer, was to fulfill his task to the best of his abilities. He could only pray that this new interest wouldn't end badly.

* * *

Kagura yawned up at the sky, her mouth wide open and stretching her arms above her head. It had been almost a year since she'd come to the bamboo cutter's home; a month since the suitors had come to the mansion; a day since the first suitor had come along to present the "fruits of his efforts"; eight hours since the second suitor had come; and three hours since the third suitor had also visited.

He had strolled in, holding a small bowl, but piled high with all kinds of luxurious foods found in the Imperial Palace. Those arrogant eyes looked triumphant as he sat in front of her screen, and held out the bowl piled with food.

"Would this be good enough for your tastes, *bleep*?"

She had narrowed her eyes and asked for an explanation as to how he came by the bowl and the foods, though she had snapped a fan in the process of being 'patient', as Gin-chan had told her to be, and her hands soon became coated with blood.

She had stared at the bowl, and noted that it was a very eccentric looking bowl, not at all like an actual begging bowl, but rather something found in an aristocrat's home. The foods were the same.

This had not been the thing she had been looking for (obviously), and she told him as such.

She watched the young man frown, then wave his hand, asking for the reason as to why she thought as such, and insisted that it was what she had been looking for.

His arrogance matched Gin-chan's, and that sort of confidence was annoying to see in someone who looked so sadistic. That was when she snapped, "Do you take me for a fool, you *bleep*?"

He looked rather surprised at her change in attitude, then smirked. "Well, then. What _do_ you think?"

"This is not what I've asked for-aru."

"'aru'?" he echoed after, an eyebrow rising at the strange sort of dialect. "Well, then… What _were_ you looking for? It appears that you really weren't looking for the begging bowl of Buddha, but something personal, then?"

She stayed silent as the suitor continued on. "So, this extravagance doesn't appeal to you, hime? Being in this sorry state of a small mansion, few servants, greedy people who prey on your beauty and fame… I thought you would love something of real luxury, instead of all this fake *bleep*."

Kagura had to bite down on her lip in order to prevent herself from crying out. To say that she was hurt and insulted was an understatement. When she spoke, she couldn't keep the poison out from her words. "No matter what kind of world I live in, in this small mansion you speak of, with those you call greedy peddlers, it beats the saccharin nest of shady in which *bleep*s like you live in. At the very least, Gin-chan and Megane Baba have never lied to me with the things like you bring along."

"You too, _hime_ , have not been so honest with us in the tasks which you presented us with."

"Then you were the fool not to really look through my words and actions to see what I wanted," she said calmly, the blood soaking into her kimono from her wounded hands. "All that I wanted…"

She looked outside the room and into the sky, at the large white globe which shone there. She stared for a long time at that large, round and cold, cold globe. "All that I wanted was a bowl filled with the warmth of those living around here. A small, but honest and good meal that I could share… that was all I wanted."

After listening to her answer, the suitor receded from Kagura's mansion without another word or request. She supposed that she had been successful in chasing away the first suitor, and had also gotten Gin-chan's expensive present. It had been nice to see the sorry-ass example of a man, but a rather affectionate foster father glow with appreciation… but it hurt just a little to know that the person who sought her out hadn't done anything of his own efforts and only lied in order to get what he wanted. It told her that she wasn't worth his efforts, except the obvious deception he had presented.

The second and third suitors hadn't been able to fulfill their tasks either. The second, though, had brought along a letter from his sister, who had been insisting on getting a playmate. Kagura had read through it, and established a rather good relationship with her through Shogun ShigeShige.

The third was caught as he tried to sneak in the mansion with a strange creature named Elizabeth and cut her hair off. Apparently, he had heard that the robe of the fire rat had the same color as Kagura's hair and planned to play it off as the robe and present it to her. The attempt failed miserably, but she had managed to gain Zura and Elizabeth's respect (it was only because they had underestimated her pretty good fighting skills, which she gained from having to live a battle as a life under Gin-chan's roof). Thus, she established a leader-disciple sort of bond with the third suitor Zura (of which she was the leader).

Now she was waiting for the fourth and fifth suitors to come back, and hopefully fail with their attempts.

It had been the first sort of fun she had with outsiders, and she found herself being expectant of their arrivals… except, maybe, the first guy.

That first suitor was someone she wanted to avoid seeing ever again. She could tell at one glance, that he was a Sadist, like Gin-chan and herself. There were enough Sadists around in the area. And she knew that a Sadist like him didn't need another Sadist like herself to act as a "submissive masochist". He could just go and screw himself over with his weird tendencies and tastes.

"Baka-Sadist…" she murmured, leaning over the banister and looked out into the garden. "That guy's a Baka-Sadist and a liar… Gin-chan would probably really like to hold him down for more of his money-aru, that's for sure…"

"I what?" speak of the devil… it was no other than her first suitor, who stood behind her, his eyes shining red in the moonlight. He was dressed in a simple kimono – one that commoners wore (though the quality and the patterns obviously weren't of a commoner's) and wore a blue haori over his shoulders. "What are you doing out here, Kagura-hime? Staying up late is bad for your looks, you know."

She blinked, then opened her mouth to scream before he lunged at her, covering her mouth with his hand. "Don't scream. I'm not going to do anything, for goodness sake's."

Kagura bit his hand and flung out a fist to hit him. "That's hard to believe-aru. How did you get in here?!"

"Danna let me in after I _donated_ a few tons of silks for your sake. Think of it as a courting present, my *bleep*."

She gave him a look. "So you bribed Gin-chan to get in here-aru. What an evil guy."

He shrugged, smirking. "At least I'm honest about it, hm?"

"Baka-Sadist." She muttered, glaring at him.

"What a fitting name. Then what shall I call you," he stepped closer to her and gently caught a lock of her long hair in his fingers. "Little piglet?"

Frowning at the strange nickname, but feeling rather warm from the proximity between them, she quickly kicked him in the crotch and ran off.

"W-wait, you *bleep*ing brat!"

"Like Hell I will!" she yelled back, and ran down the hall as fast as she could, throwing off all the layers of her kimono on the way to lighten the load. "What was that… what was that… what was that?!" was what she muttered to herself all the way down to her room. Kagura-hime, perhaps, felt the first tide of what might bloom to be the first blossom of affections towards another man.

Shuffling inside her room, she dived under the covers and closed her eyes, urging herself to go to sleep.

She really didn't expect him to follow her all the way to her room either, so she yelped when she felt the covers yanked off of her, and two burning red eyes staring down at her.

"You have guts, kicking me in the *bleep* and running off, you *bleep*."

Before he could say anything else, Kagura quickly jumped backwards to get at her parasol, which was lying against the wall and aimed it at the intruder. Without warning, she shot at him.

As the smoke cleared, her eyes widened to see the Sadist still standing, his katana drawn and sliced bullets sprinkled like flower petals on the ground. She blew away the smoke from the tip of her parasol and put a hand on her hip. "So you're alive-aru."

"Don't underestimate me here, you violent *bleep*. I figured you were a nice docile princess, but the rumors owe you too much credit, eh?" he smirked at her, cocking his katana. "Taming you is going to be more fun than I thought."

Kagura frowned and snapped, "I thought that you withdrew from your proposal, as you failed, and I wouldn't see you again."

"I never said anything of the sort." He answered, and started rummaging inside his kimono. She braced herself for whatever he was about to bring out, her entire body tensing up to prepare for possible combat.

Her blue eyes blinked in the light of the candle, and she showed a blank expression. That was a given, since she was dumfounded to see the small bowl of rice and raw eggs on top come from inside his clothes. The rice was even steaming, as if it had just gotten off the fire.

"Do you just keep a container for food inside your clothes or something? How the hell did you bring that out?" though she sounded annoyed with his little display, inside she was rather awed to see that happen like magic.

"What's with that reaction, when I came all the way here and am presenting to you _this_." He threw the bowl at her, and out of pure instinct, she lunged to catch it before it shattered on the ground.

She gave out a sigh of relief and of pure bliss when she smelled the warm aroma of rice mixing with the eggs and soy sauce waft up to her nose. She slowly got up with the bowl safely in her hands and glared at him. "What the hell do you think you're doing, playing around with food-aru?!"

He sheathed his katana and crossed his arms and shrugged, "I knew you would catch it."

She lowered her parasol in turn, but didn't stop frowning at him. "Did… you come all the way here to give me this?"

He didn't give any reply, but she could tell from the look in his eyes that she had guessed right. She blinked rapidly, unsure of how to respond. That was one thing that she didn't expect at all, and especially from this person, of all people.

She gave him another look and pointed an accusing finger. "Don't think that you've gotten past to persuade me to become your slave, you Sadist-bastard."

"You're not going to be saying that by the time I'm done with you." He haughtily claimed, and began rummaging through his kimono again.

Kagura flinched, bracing herself again with the bowl of rice and eggs, anticipating some weird SM toy or a weapon he was going to use. To her surprise, he only brought out a pair of chopsticks and held them out to her. She blinked several times, unable to contain some of her surprise, but cautiously accepted the pair, giving him a slight tilt of the head to show her thanks.

"What are you up to, you creepy do-S bastard?" she asked, poking the chopsticks into the rice and began eating in earnest. All the while, he was staring at her, and it was starting to become rather unnerving…

The Sadist's eyes looked calm, almost melancholy as he replied, "I just thought that you needed it. Especially after you said something that sounded unlike you."

"Huh?" she asked, with her mouth full of rice.

He sighed heavily and shook his head, then took a seat on the tatami right beside Kagura's bedside. His poise and every movement oozed elegance in a rather laid back manner – as if he was used to lounging around anywhere like he owned it. Despite his very annoying and intimidating appearance and aura, Kagura could tell that there was something _off_ about this person. Something that resonated inside her as a person and brought forth… something like worry.

But she didn't have any right to say anything to him, and really didn't care that much, so she plopped down on her futon so that she faced the Sadist, and continued to eat her night-time meal. He stayed next to her, saying nothing and doing nothing, except staring at her the entire time.

She kind of felt like a little rabbit eating with abandon in front of a wolf who was eyeing her hungrily, but she could also sense something like appreciation in those red eyes – as if he was really pleased to see that she had accepted his… er… _gift._

Of course, it didn't mean that she liked this guy in any way (at least, not yet).

When she was finished eating, she thrust the empty bowl and chopsticks back at him, and he glared at her, irate. "Don't you know how to say thank you-,"

"Oi, you Baka-Sadist." She interrupted. "The rice wasn't bad. But next time, bring something of your own-aru. It's weird to be eating a meal without someone to share with. And bring more soy sauce next time. The seasoning was lacking-aru."

He snorted, but got up with the bowl tucked back into his clothes. "That's bold of you to say, after eating with such relish, brat."

"Who are you calling brat-aru, I'm a splendidly grown woman! Don't put me in the same boat like Gin-chan did to me when he found me-aru!"

"Yeah, yeah. You can tell me all that next time when I come to visit you."

"'Next time'?! You better not come back here, or else I'll blast you to pieces, you stupid do-S *bleep*!"

"You can try like Hell, stupid *bleep* *bleep*." With that, he disappeared along with the vanishing moonlight. She could have sworn… that he was smiling.

* * *

"Baka-Sadist…" Kagura shivered as she recalled that man's intense(ly sadistic) gaze. It was just like seeing… _no_. No way… she couldn't remember. She _shouldn't_ remember any of those things. That was why she had decided to come down here.

"Kagura-hime? You there?" that was right. She was having another audience with one of her suitors. The fourth one, named Hijikata Toshiro, who had been entrusted with bringing back the jewel from the dragon's neck and making it into a gag and—

"—decide to forfeit this proposal, and withdraw-,"

"Huh?"

"Kagura-hime?" this time, it was Gin-chan who drew her out of her thoughts. "Hijikata-sama is going to withdraw his proposal of marriage to you. Did you hear?"

" _Like_ I _said_ , you stupid old deaf man, it's _not_ a marriage, but a _contract_." Hijikata gritted out, a vein popping in his head. He and Gintoki had already bashed heads several times over during his visits to Kagura. It appeared that (no kidding) he and her foster father hated each other.

"And like _I_ said, you stupid tax-robbing violent *bleep*, our Kagura-hime is not some sort of official as to get into something shady like a contract. Who do _you_ think she is, some sort of *bleep* I picked off the streets that I can sell off?"

"Gin-chan, that's what you told me on the third day I was here," Kagura muttered, low enough for only the old bamboo cutter to hear. She sighed as the two continued their useless rant about what was what and who was right, and slowly slipped out of the small screens set up to sneak out the back door and return to her room.

On the way back, all the servants and ladies in waiting who she met bowed down low as she passed by them, knowingly silent as she began slipping off each layer of the kimonos wrapping around her like chains. She let out a breath of relief with each heavy cloth dropping to the ground, and her feet patted softly on the sleek wooden floors.

It was so different from the small, crowded, dirty and crumbling hut she had first come to live in. It was better, but it was not. Her world had grown from the small humble abode, and her new family down on Earth felt a little further off than they used to be. She supposed that she loved them, cared for them, and wished them happiness. She was glad, in a way, because she was able to help them out in many ways, but also felt somber as she knew that the blessings brought along through her presence made them distant from her.

Kagura walked into her room and began rolling down on the floor, her hair tangling up around her waist and legs. She had nothing to do nowadays, except act like the princess she was not in front of others.

She rolled down onto her front and looked outside. The sun was quickly setting, and its dark red and orange light spread across the floors from the window, dying her white kimono a bright, bright crimson.

"Crimson… blood… flower…" it spilled across and merged with the vermillion of her hair. "Sadist."

She blinked at the last addition to her mumbling, surprised. She slowly got up and stared confusedly at the red light fading from her hand, wondering why she had thought of him at the last minute.

"You called?"

She jumped at the familiar but abrupt voice cutting through her thoughts, and looked behind her. She quickly tried to get up on her feet, but her hair didn't untangle from her legs, and she fell backwards on her butt.

"Owwwwiee!" she squealed, tears rising to her eyes from the impact. She glared up at the intruder. "What the hell do you think you're doing-aru?!"

He only stared down at her, his arms crossed. Today, he was wearing a black kimono with white peonies, and a haori with a deep glare that matched his red eyes. "What?"

"You're _supposed_ to catch me when I fall, you stupid Saaadist! That's what they all do in those Sunday dramas and soap operas and stories they tell when the heroine is falling-aru! The stupid male character is supposed to catch her and have that awkward yet sweet moment and-," she caught herself before she said anything more embarrassing, but the harm was done.

The Sadist crouched down so that he was at her eye level and smirked. "You wanted me to make you swoon as I caught you?"

Kagura cursed under her breath and at herself for blurting everything out, her face feeling warm. Ugh. She was obviously going to pay the price for saying something weird, and in front of _this_ person. She averted her eyes, not daring to look at the Sadist directly.

She heard him snort, then start laughing as he doubled over. She blinked, then glared, scrambling to her feet and backing away, feeling mortified. "So what?! What are you laughing at, y-you stupid do-S bastard-,"

"Of all the things I had to hear and experience when I came here… gosh, you're just like a little brat, to have hopes like that for a person you've met only a handful of times." He said as he finally stopped wheezing from all that laughter.

She glared down at him before moving to seize her umbrella. She felt that shooting his face off was too good of a punishment. No, she would castrate him first, then shoot off his *bleep* and break his bones and then drown him in the pond outside—

But before she could do so, she felt herself being tugged backwards by her hair and stumble into rather foreign arms. She could immediately feel the warmth emanating from under his kimono, and the firm muscles she fell against. The arms around her felt solid, and strangely safe.

"What are you-,"

"You wanted something worthy of a brainless young shoujo's romantic dream, so I'm giving it to you." Was his answer as he hugged her more tightly, one arm around her torso and the other wrapping around her waist. She shivered as she felt his face snuggle against her hair, and hear his breathing in her ear, hear him sniff her scent. Every time he came into direct contact with her skin, she grew warm, and her legs would grow weak.

He spoke softly into her ear, "For someone with such a dirty mouth, it appears that you really are a woman."

That, was the limit of her sanity and the end of the line. "L-let me go-aru!"

She grabbed the sleeve of his kimono, then twisted so that she held his collar. She ducked, and without warning, used all of her strength to throw him across the room and outside the building, landing straight into the pond in the garden.

He didn't have the time to even yell out, while she huffed and gasped for breath. It wasn't that the action took any effort, but more because she was extremely flustered from all… _that_.

She wrapped her arms around herself, trembling. It didn't feel… bad. It felt strange, that was for sure, but she didn't _hate_ it.

"Oi, you BAKA ONNA!" the shout brought her out of her thoughts (again), and she turned to look at the sorry, wet mess of a man waddling out from the pond, glaring up at her.

At the sight, she couldn't help herself – she stared laughing. She managed to crawl to the small balcony where he was walking towards with wet squishes, but she was laughing as she went.

She didn't know that she could laugh like this. It had been such a long time since she did.

"You violent, brash, idiotic brat, how dare you-," he began, his eyes clouded and his face in a furious frown as she continued to laugh in front of him. Without finishing his sentence, he clicked his tongue, then hoisted himself over the beams so that he was in front of her.

"Since you're not stopping, I can obviously do what I need to do, eh? I should've done this from the start instead of yelling at you, when you're obviously not going to listen…"

She had stopped laughing when she saw the familiar, sadistic gleam in his eyes, and the raised hands hovering above her.

It would be obvious and quite inevitable to say that the next tirade of laughter that came from Kagura hime's room was not of delight or humorous relief.

* * *

 **I didn't think that it would be so long... I was going to make it a one-shot... but... turns out, that didn't happen. Oh, well. So. I suppose I'll see you guys next time...**


	12. China-hime no Monogatari (Part II)

**First off, good evening/morning/afternoon, dear readers. I've come back from a long period of time off from writing. A lot of things had been going on, university being one of them. Pardon me for that. But because of that, I probably won't be able to write as much as I had before, and will be updating very, very slowly. Any of the requests that came in before-I'm not sure if I'll be able to get to them, but I'll try my best.**

 **But for now, enjoy the long awaited, long chapter, dear readers and tell me what you think of it^^**

 **Disclaimers: Gintama is not min** **e**

* * *

Chapter 12: China-Hime no Monogatari (Part 2)

A young man wearing royal robes and armed with a beautiful umbrella looked down at the small, but verdant place of green and blue colors, humming a rather cheerful tune.

"Are you really going, sir?" asked the servant, who was holding up the bundle of long white bandage strips, which the young man took up and began wrapping around his head and arms.

"Yes, I am." The young man was smiling brightly, despite there being right behind him an entourage of darkly dressed men who stood armed. "It's almost time for our little Princess to come back to where she belongs. Isn't that right, bald man-,"

"I'm not _bald_ , you stupid son of mine, I'm only _slightly_ thinning." Snapped the man in front, glaring back at the young man. He too was wearing royal robes, and was armed for combat, an olive green umbrella in his hand. Looking at the flowers reminiscent of his dead wife, the (balding) man whispered, "Don't worry, Kouka. I'll bring her back safely."

* * *

It was yet another night where the Moon shone over the two of them, who were both lying down in the grassy courtyard in the garden at the back of her room. And it had been only one of the very many nights they had spent together, alone in the part of the manor.

It had all started soon after she had rejected his advances (at least, in official and formal ways). He had soon begun appearing every single night to pick on her, talk with her, and fight with her. She had tried to shoo him away, but never succeeded, as she herself began to look forward to his nightly visits.

After the fifth suitor Takasugi Shinsuke had been reported as dead from his efforts in completing his task (he really did try to swallow the poor bird who had hatched from the egg as it made its way down his throat), Kagura had begun to drift apart from her family on Earth, who began to distance themselves from her. She was never able to ask why they did so, and was too afraid of their rejection to do anything but keep silent. She didn't leave her room, and no longer met anyone outside.

And it was the Sadist who drew the life from her at that time through his sadistic, but honest antics each night. And it was how they ended up right now, both being completely spent from fighting each other.

No one had stopped these two from engaging in a very amateurish brawl, and neither of them wanted to draw back from 'playing' with a person who was of equal strength and sadism.

The Sadist couldn't recall when the last time was… the last time he had talked, fought and actually interacted with another person properly like this.

Kagura-hime couldn't remember when the last time someone had gone head to head with her and was equal to her, ever since she became a 'princess', and no longer just 'Kagura'.

It felt as if… they were living properly. Their wounds from the fight, and the pain they felt from them told them that they were still living beings, and _really_ living. This was the sort of life they wanted – to live without pretense or formality, and just live without bounds.

Perhaps that was what had drawn them to each other at the present moment (and not just the similarities in their sadistic natures).

Breathing out a deep sigh, Kagura licked her split but healing lip. "Oi, Baka-Sadist."

"What do you want, you Baka-Onna." He grunted back, cradling his sore face.

"Do you have a family to go back to?"

At the random and unexpected question, the Sadist glanced at Kagura upside down. "Huh?"

"My family…" she pointed up to the Moon shining above. "… is up there."

The Sadist huffed, as if her story was ridiculous, but didn't say so. "Ah, is that so. My family's all dead."

"Ah, is that so-aru."

"What was with that tone, you brat. Don't sound so nonchalant when a person is telling something personal." He snapped.

"Humph. I could say the same thing for you, Baka-Sadist. I've never even told Gin-chan this, so you better be grateful." She answered, not in the least bit intimidated.

"Huh? Who said I was going to liste-,"

"I've loved living down here. You can hear the birds sing, the crickets chirp, see the seasons change, and play with cats as much as you want. I was able to scream and run around as much as I wanted, and stuff myself with all kinds of food." At this point, though he didn't mean to, the Sadist ended up paying attention to her, staring at her as if enthralled. He was surprised when he saw her eyes welling up with water. "I really loved staying here. I love everyone here, and loved the warmth they were able to give me. But that… is coming to an end."

Kagura got up into a sitting position, brushing off the grass from her kimono. "It was fun knowing you, Sadist."

"Wait," he grabbed her arm and pulled her down to the ground, staring into her face. "I was right…" he muttered as he saw her crying face. "What the hell do you think you're doing, you stupid brat?"

"I can't stay here anymore, Sadist." She said, her expression dark. "I have nothing else to bind me here. No suitors to tie me down with ridiculous proposals, no one to call-,"

"What are you talking about, you stupid woman?"

"What do you mean, what am I talking about, I-,"

"You have me, don't you?"

"What…?"

"I'm saying that you have me, and you'll have me for the rest of your days." He leaned forward to bite her cheek, garnering a pained squeal. "I want you to become my wife."

At the very least, that stopped her from crying, but now she stared at him blankly, clearly not understanding what he was talking about. "I thought you wanted me to become your masochistic, submissive slave, Sadist."

He gave a sigh and bowed his head, struggling to word it out again. "That was before. And sure, you can do that if you want to, but I want you to be my wife. Formally…"

A very heavy silence descended between them, and the Sadist didn't dare look up at her yet. He could feel her trembling under his hands, and was now waiting for the moment in which she would hurl herself into his arms—

"I can't."

That was unexpected.

"I can't marry you, Sadist. I-,"

* * *

"Mikado-sama?" the courtier called out to his liege beyond the screen, and was answered with silence. "Shall I prepare the palanquin for tonight's visit-,"

"Shut up for a moment."

"H-hai…" the poor courtier could say nothing else but wait for his lord to give commands. It wasn't his imagination – the Emperor's mood as of late, had become extremely down-spirited and much worse than before.

Putting aside the courtier's worries, the Emperor who was sitting mutedly in his room looked upwards at the crescent Moon, frowning. Deep and bloody nail marks were apparent on the palms of his hands from forming fists too tightly. On his face, purple bruises were fading after several days of recovery, and his red eyes were narrowed in discontent.

"Go and prepare troops to guard Kagura-hime's manor."

"W-what-,"

"Go and prepare troops to protect Kagura-hime from the intruders!"

"H-hai, Mikado-sama. Right away."

The Emperor sank into a seat, putting his forehead against his hand, frowning deeply. "Why… why did it have to be you…?"

* * *

The large number of troops surrounding the great manor sparked rumors throughout the land about the mysterious origins of the Kagura-hime. According to a servant who worked in the manor, the rumors consisted of how Kagura-hime had apparently been a resident of the Capital of the Moon, and thus, not human, and how the Emperor himself was acting to protect her from the people of the Moon who would come to reclaim her on the night of the Full Moon.

Needless to say, her parents, Taketori no Gintoki and ShinBaba were both extremely distressed and saddened by their daughter's soon to be return to her real home, and the Kagura-hime herself was seen crying each night while looking up at the sky, where the Moon was.

Each day that passed, the sobs would grow louder from the manor, and the soldiers outside grew more restless, cautious and wary of the unknown intruders who were to come in a few weeks time.

News of the Kagura-hime soon reached the ears of the ones who had once come to propose- *ahem* - ask of her respectively various things as well.

"My, my, Ani-ue sama, Kagura-chan isn't human? However could such a rumor abound from the lips of people?"

"I do not know, unless that is the truth which they choose to listen to, Soyo."

"But Kagura-chan… does this mean that she's in danger?"

"Danger?"

"Aniue-sama, I have a petition to ask of you."

"What is it?"

"It's for Kagura-chan."

* * *

"So Leader is planning to leave this Earth…"

"'She's not human, it seems'"

"Even so, she is our precious comrade, Elizabeth. We can't do nothing and-,"

"'Katsura-san, I understand. Let's go and kick butt'"

"Elizabeth! Ah, let's do so!"

* * *

"Are you really serious about doing this?"

"And if I wasn't? Would you really stop me, Hijikata? You, who has already failed to complete the task that I bestowed upon you? Was it so hard to get that girl to me? What with your name as the Oni no Fukuchou, it should have been an easy thing to do… hmph. You should be grateful that I didn't make you commit seppuku already."

"Urrgh… h-hai."

* * *

(Takasugi Shinsuke was already cold dead in the ground, and sorely missed by his own retainers)

* * *

"Kagura-hime…"

At such a time, it was a given that even Kagura-hime's adoptive parents (?) would be upset by the news of their beloved (?) child being taken away. They had spent much time together, and developed a sort of bond akin to but deeper than that of blood, after all. Even if they quarreled like squirrels fighting over the last acorn, they all cared for each other (though it was hard to tell with ShinBaba and Taketori no Gintoki, since ShinBaba always said that he—er—she was obviously off better living without the bamboo cutter).

Kagura-hime was at her usual place, sitting in the gardens and looking up at the sky, where the Moon was almost at its fullest. No one could hear her, but it was certain that she was crying as she waited.

Not far from her, two figures watched her in the shadows with grim faces. The smaller shadow spoke, "Gintoki Jiiya, what are you going to do now?"

"Beat down the very first ones who come to take our little child away." Answered the old man, stroking his old wooden bokuto. His fingers clenched and unclenched around the hilt as if in preparation.

ShinBaba glared at her(?) husband through sharp glasses. "You know that's not what I'm talking about, Gintoki Jiiya."

As if feeling guilty, the old man ("Like I said, I'm not an old man, damn it!") flinched, and went silent. Then he said, "It was alright for that sadistic child to play with Kagura, since it was obviously just harmless play. But I won't allow him or Kagura to cross that line." He added in a mutter, "She's better off without someone like him."

The glasses Baba tsked, making a frustrated sort of face. "Ara, ara. But I don't think that's something you should say yourself, as a sadist yourself. And weren't you already mindful of the consequences when you let the Mikado himself in the manor, after you got bribed with that mountain of gold?"

The old man flinched again guiltily.

"Even if it was the overlord of Hell himself who came to visit us, you would have chased him away if you really meant to," said the old woman (?), looking back at their daughter. "The fact that you didn't chase away the Mikado meant that you-,"

"That's enough, ShinBaba. Thinking about it is enough to give me goosebumps." He cut her (?) off and sighed, his white eyebrows crunching together. He murmured, "I mean… that Mikado, no, a Sadist of a brat being my son-in-law? It's terrifying to think about…"

Beside him, ShinBaba had a similar sad expression. "If it was going to be like this, you really should have kicked the Emperor out when you had the chance. In the end, if things remain the way they are, Kagura and that person are going to be the ones who are hurt the most."

Because the old woman (?) had already left, she (?) wasn't able to see the old bamboo cutter frown, his face darkening. "Like hell I'm going to let things remain the way they are. Not while I'm alive and kicking."

* * *

It was the day of the full Moon, the day designated for Kagura-hime's return. The entire manor stood in silence, waiting for the embassies of "Heavenly Beings" – the Moon People. The guards were more alert than ever (in fact, their numbers had apparently increased three-fold), and Kagura-hime was in the deepest part of the manor, unseen by outside eyes and from the moonlight.

The third hour passed since the Moon rose and shone luminously.

"There! What is that?!" a soldier pointed out to a small dot steadily growing bigger with each passing minute, coming directly from the light of the Moon.

"They're here! They're here!" the soldiers all poised with bows in their hands, preparing to volley their shots, when they realized that the small dot was growing bigger, and rapidly falling towards the Earth, not floating down.

No one had the chance to use any of their weapons as something huge came hurtling down and crashed into the gate, literally knocking away the large formation and causing a huge explosion. The rest of the soldiers were blinded by the extreme light coming from the explosion, for it was nothing like they had ever seen before.

As soon as the soldiers were blinded, many dark, tall and rather built looking figures emerged from the foreign means of transportation, holding large parasols in their hands.

"W-who are you?!" one of the soldiers shouted, the fastest to recover and pick up his sword. He was puzzled from seeing these… beings, as they looked different from what he or anyone else had imagined. They were far from looking like 'Heavenly Beings' – 'Dogs from Hell' would have been a much more befitting sort of title.

"Knock, knock! We're here to reclaim the princess we entrusted to you." A young man who wore strange clothes and had his face covered in strips of what looked like bandages said cheerily.

When the bald(ing) man beside him gave a nod, the huge crowd of Heavenly Beings(?) suddenly disappeared from sight, and only the swishing of wind was heard as they streaked by. The soldiers standing by, poised for battle all shrunk to their knees in what was fear and silent reverence. Despite not looking so, these people were clearly from another world and possessed strange abilities no human had.

"You're serious about handling the small fry, Baldie?" the young man said, sounding rather miffed.

"Don't call me Baldie, you stupid son." Answered the older man, who folded his parasol, and swung it in an arc.

An even bigger explosion resounded throughout the night air, and all of the soldiers were immediately blown away by the force of the stranger's attack.

"Ohya, ohya, you're going all out already?" the young man whistled, tapping his parasol against his shoulder as he strode forward past the quickly deteriorating gate and walls. Soldiers, weapons and blood littered the ground.

"This much is nothing." Grumbled the older man, as he too strode forward. "We've waited for far too long, and my patience is at an end."

"Well, if you say so."

The two walked at a steady pace, calling out for their princess' name and looked for her. Maids in the manor and stray soldiers all cleared the way, crying in terror and praying to be spared. They paid no attention to such humans, and only concentrated on trying to find the princess.

Just when they had entered the inner courtyard of the manor, they heard a large commotion and the sound of battle from across the building. The old man, who seemed to have found it a bother to walk across the unfamiliar terrain of structures, stretched out his arm and swung his parasol again. At the blow of his swing, the entire building came apart, flying away in the wind, to reveal the other side.

At the sight, the young man chuckled, "Well, well, well. That's rather surprising."

There were four men standing, and around them lay the bodies (not corpses) of the Heavenly Beings(?), and their broken weapons scattered next to them.

Unperturbed by this sight, the older man stepped forward, and spoke up. "It's rather difficult to find people who could rival our strength and skills down here. Who might you gentlemen be?"

"Well, it must be difficult especially as you people live somewhere far away, like the Moon." Said the man with v-shaped bangs and smoke rising from the lit cigarette in his mouth.

"It's not well known that people live on the Moon, except the Rabbit who lives there. But you clearly aren't Rabbits…" commented the man with long hair, who wore a strange costume of yellow. Next to him was an even stranger looking being who looked like an overgrown duck with no curves.

"I didn't expect people like you who are apparently from the Moon to be bald. The princess has nice hair, that it seems rather unexpected." Added a man with dead fish eyes and silver hair (yes, it was the old bamboo cutter himself, who came out to protect his foster daughter from being taken).

At the insult, the bald(ing) man raised his parasol again, a vein popping in his forehead, "I am not bald," and he swung the weapon, smashing it down into the ground. " _I still have hair, you disrespectful fools_!"

This time, the explosion didn't just shake the mansion, but the entire ground down below, echoing to the reaches of the palace where the Emperor lived, and the deepest parts of the mansion where Kagura-hime was being guarded by her family.

It was a dreadful explosion, one that no one had ever heard or seen before.

And the force of that explosion made it ever so clear that no one would be able to prevent Kagura-hime from being escorted back to her home on the Moon.

* * *

"They've arrived." Kagura murmured, and right beside her, her mother (?) ShinBaba squeezed her hand worriedly.

"It's alright. Gin-san and the others will be able to stop them. You don't have to go back, Kagura-hime."

At hearing that honorific, Kagura's head fell slightly. She didn't want to be a princess when she came to Earth. That was why she'd come purposely to a place, to a _home_ where she wouldn't be treated as such. And yet…

She shook her head sadly. "No. You don't know them like I do. Even Gin-chan and the others…" she shivered, her expression darkening. "I…"

"Kagura-hime?" ShinBaba prompted, patting Kagura's shoulder, trying to reassure her.

"I… I loved everyone, and still do, ShinBaba. I love you all, but…" shaking off ShinBaba's grip, she stood regally and strode forward. "I must go back to my true home, to the Moon…"

"Kagura-chan, wait!"

Kagura paused, tears welling up at the familiar nickname. She would miss hearing it, very much. She would miss them very much. She would yearn to see _him_ always, but…

"…if I don't go back, you'll all die." This last saying went unheard by anyone, answered only with silence.

Kagura ran as quickly as she could down the halls, her eyes glancing over the broken wood, and her nose twitching to the smell of blood. She desperately hoped that she wouldn't be too late – that she would make it in time to save them all.

She caught the sight of a familiar braid in the corner of her eye and changed the direction in which she ran – running, her mouth open and air sucking into her lungs so that she would be able to scream.

When she arrived in the courtyard, the ground was streaming with blood, soaking up her kimono and coating the soles of her bare feet. The sight might have been difficult to gaze upon for a young hime, but Kagura-hime didn't even flinch as her eyes raked over the fallen corpses, searching for that of her friends. There were soldiers sprawled across the place, most of whom had missing limbs or decapitated heads.

"To think that mere humans would give us such a hard time…" she found the owner of the voice, and her eyes widened to see—

"Papi, _stop_!"

At her scream, the two sole figures standing there turned, but didn't lower their weapons. "Kagura…"

"Don't you dare kill them!" she yelled, glaring at them. Fury, relief and fear swirled inside her as she walked forward. Her slow steps broke into a quick pace, and into a sprint (at this point, the balding man was smiling brightly and opening his arms so that she could jump into them) as she jumped to kick the bald(ing) man in the face.

" _What_ are you doing, you _stupid bald geezer?!_ "

Whether he had let her, or he hadn't been expecting it was uncertain, but it was clear that the man staggered from the impact of her foot smacking into him, shock appearing on his mien. He obviously hadn't been expecting this sort of welcome.

"K-Kagura-dear? Wh-aaaat…" he wheezed out, as she collapsed in front of the figure face-fallen on the ground, her hands scrambling to touch his face.

"Gin-chan? Gin-chan, wake up…" she furiously ripped the sleeves of her kimono so she could wipe away the blood as she turned him over to see his wounds. He was covered in blood from head to toe – almost entirely dyed red, so much so that she was almost unable to recognize him if it weren't for his silver shaggy hair.

She patted his face and called out his name several times, but he didn't stir. Had she been too late?

"Well, to see that you're doing well is good, more than anything…" the bald(ing) man murmured, and the braided man next to him smiled as he slammed down his own umbrella into the ground, barely missing Zura's head.

"You found some pretty useful bodyguards, didn't you, crybaby? Considering that they were human, that is."

Kagura couldn't find any words to use at the moment. She looked all around her, but the red was the only color to fill her vision. No one was moving.

"Di—y-,"

"What?"

She grit out, "Did you… kill them…?"

The bald(ing) man raised his eyebrows and answered, "Are you angry about that Earthling, Kagura-,"

He wasn't able to finish his sentence as he was sent flying backwards. Another explosion echoed in the night, albeit quieter than its previous ones.

When Kagura stepped forward towards the direction in which she kicked the head of Heavenly Beings(?), the young man stopped her with a smile.

"Kamui, don't you dare interfere. He-,"

"And why do you think that the old Baldie and I came all the way here? We're not here to fight with you, _Princess_. It's time to go-,"

"And you think I don't know that?!" she screamed, frustration and grief on her face. She crumpled to the blood red ground, her mouth opening and closing as she reached for her adoptive father. "You think I just came out here because I didn't know you were here…? You think that-,"

"Well, for one thing, I daresay that you shouldn't be so quick to jump to conclusions. That old _samurai_ -san is alive." He called out, smiling as he poked the old bamboo cutter's cheek.

She blinked as the old man slowly stirred in her lap and was now looking up at her, grinning his cheeky old stinky grin. "Hey there… Kagura."

Her grief dissipated, giving way to surprise and irritation as he started laughing nervously.

"To be sure, this old man and our old man fought, but during the summit of the battle, this old man slipped and banged his face on the Baldie's knee before passing out like a corpse." Kamui began explaining with a jocular smile. "And as he fell, he accidentally slipped on the blood and kicked the v-shaped guy in the *bleep*, and he in turn fell to accidentally kick the ninja okama-looking guy and his large avian pet in the head, and so on."

"Oi, who the hell are you calling an old man?! I'm not even in my *bleep*-," (that part was obviously to hide the real unknown age of the old bamboo cutter, for fear that our dear readers may be disgusted – "Who the hell are you talking about?! What do you mean, 'disgusted'?!")

Kagura sat there as each of her friends began to stir, one after the other and got up, rubbing their heads or faces and limbs (though the dead soldiers who were limbless remained limbless and those without heads stayed unmoving). It appeared as if Kamui had been speaking the truth.

"Ah, Leader!"

"Kagura-hime…"

"Hime-san…"

"Oi, oi, you guys weren't dead? Ah… honestly. I really hoped the impact would have killed you, tax-robbing blockheaded daimyo…" the bamboo cutter spat out, and the respective man glared before swinging his katana at his head.

"Who the hell are you calling a tax-robbing blockheaded daimyo, you crafty conman?!"

She blinked, relief filling her, and her body responded to her overflowing emotions by bringing forth laughter. She couldn't stop when it started. The battlefield had turned into a quarreling playground in just a few seconds, and all of her dread had turned into mist. She couldn't control the shaking in her torso and in her legs as she laughed.

Everyone began to stare at her, their eyes wide.

"Kagura?" her adoptive father called out confusedly.

She slowly got up on her feet, wobbling slightly. The dark expression she had was replaced by a bright smile. "I haven't been able to laugh like that since Sadist came-aru. Ah, that was a good laugh."

As if he knew what she was about to do, Kamui opened his umbrella to the sky, waving it like a sign. The bald(ing) man was also back quite early, shaking off the rocks and dust from his clothes. What remained of his hair had been blown away as well (And yes, he cried some when he noticed later on).

"Kagura-chan?" her adoptive mother(?)/megane, who had just arrived, called out worriedly.

A large humming sound resounded in the distance, and a large shadow soon covered the bloody ground. Everyone looked up to see a strange UFO hovering in the air, and their mouths opened in shock. It wasn't something of this world.

"Kagura-chan, you can't just go back like this! You-," the megane called out. "You're a part of our family! Are you really alright with this? We can-,"

"And that is exactly why I have to leave, Shinpachi." Kagura said, smiling. "Because you're my family, I have to protect you. From them," she pointed to the two blood-soaked men behind her, "and from… me."

The bamboo cutter and his wife(?) stared in shock, unable to comprehend her words. "What?"

She slowly pulled out what seemed like two letters from her kimono sleeve and a small bottle of something, handing them to her parents.

"This is for you," she said, pointing to one of them. "And the other is for Baka-Sadist-aru. I bet you already knew about him being my pet dog and his daily visits, right?" she stared pointedly at her adoptive father, who flinched guiltily. "So… I leave him in your hands."

Kagura turned towards her 'escorts', who held out a robe to cover her shoulders. "Let us return home."

She looked bitter as their hands came close to her. She could almost feel the cold slickness of the silk and shivered. She couldn't help but compare the feeling to the warmth of the kimono her Baka-Sadist always wore.

If there was one thing she would regret coming down to this Earth, it would be the fact that she had met him. If she hadn't met him, then she wouldn't be missing him like this already. She wouldn't hurt so much.

Before she could take another step, a large explosion above their heads made her stop. The UFO slowly drew back from the strange impact, and she heard her escorts mutter the same outburst of surprise.

"It can't be…"

"Who the hell is 'returning'?" that arrogant drawl. "Did I hear that correctly?" that stupidly royal trot. "Oi, Baka-Onna. Are you really Baka-Onna?" those red eyes, always taunting her. And… "The Baka-Onna I know would never draw back from something without a fight."

She blinked at the addition to his attire, which was a huge black *bleep* (it was called a bazooka) on his shoulder. "Why in the world do you have a *bleep* on your shoulder, Sadist?"

"It's called a bazooka, Baka." He answered, suddenly aiming it towards her and firing without hesitation.

Kagura yelped in surprise as a huge bullet like cannonball whooshed past her to hit the two behind her. She could tell that they weren't dead since Kamui had had his umbrella open, but she couldn't shake off her shock (and not from fear of the monstrosity of its destruction, as her adoptive parents and the others were gaping from).

"Why the hell would you hide a toy like that from me? Damn, it's better than my parasol-aru. Where do I get one?!" she asked excitedly, then blinked, shaking herself out of her old childishness. She couldn't be that overexcited child who had all the time in the world anymore. She had to—

"Oi, you little piglet," Sadist cut into her thoughts, sharply tugging her forward by her hair. "Who the hell gave you permission to leave, anyway?"

Her eyes widened, and she tried to turn her face away, but his fists tightened around her hair. Pain trickled along her scalp as he tugged her hair fiercely. "No, don't look like a *bleep*ing liar who looks scared as if she's about to be found out. Look. At. Me."

She bit her lip and mumbled, "Why do you care?"

"'Why' you say-," she heard the bazooka drop as both his hands grabbed her shoulders. "It's obviously because you're mine!"

 _No…_

"Who the hell do you think you are, trying to run off without even telling your Master about anything? Did I look to be that much of a helpless idiot who wouldn't be able to fend off a couple of rabbits from the Moon? Are you seriously that dubious of what I, of all people can do?"

 _No… you can't. Sadist, you can't._

"Where the hell would you turn to if not to me?"

 _If you say anything more, then—_

"Oi, young man right there."

 _-the stupid Baldie…_

"Hey, young Mister over there~?"

 _… and Bakamui are going to go on a rampage!_

"Oi, old Baldie over there. I'm having a conversation with this Baka-Onna over here, so can you please *bleep* off?"

"Damn it, that's not just a Baldie, Sadist, he's-,"

"Huh?"

She was too late in warning him. Before she could do anything, the Baldie had thrown a punch, and the Sadist was thrown across the courtyard to land into the arms of his living safety bags.

"Uuuugh, damn it, this was exactly what I wanted to avoid…" she muttered, face-palming her red face. Despite the dire situation, she couldn't help but react like a regular girl would have when a young man is reciting all the lines a shoujo would love hearing (and more so if it was a person she liked).

"Mikado-sama, are you alright?!"

"Oi, Emperor, did you break anything?! I'm not paying for medical fees!"

"Huh? Who are you referring to, Hijikata-kun? Gintoki?"

"Shut it you noisy bastards."

"'Emperor'…?" Kagura murmured in confusion. "Sadist? Wait, did you guys just call Sadist the Emperor-aru? I thought he was that weird Prince guy who was my first suitor-,"

The men flinched as Sadist glared at them. "Way to blow my cover. Now I won't be able to sneak out of the palace anymore now, you useless dogs." Wiping the blood off his mouth, Sadist stood to shake out his kimono, then faced Kamui and the Baldie. "I, Okita Sougo, am the fifteenth Emperor to this family name, Prince of the Planet of Sadists (this honorific elicited several looks of "no such planet exists. We would know for sure" from the Heavenly Beings) and _Kaiser_ ("No, no, that's not even Japanese, Mikado-sama.") of these lands. If you want to have your precious princess returned, then I dare you to try to take her from me."

It was a challenge. "Damn it, men and testosterone-aru. They think that everything can be solved if they clash fists without the heroine in the way. Mami was right in saying that they're idiots-aru." Kagura muttered as she could see waves of fury roll off of the Baldie.

"Is that so? By what sort of right might you be talking about, then? She is NOT some sort of thing you can just claim a hand over…" anyone could tell that the Baldie was barely suppressing his temper. "And I am taking her back with the right that I have of a FATHER!"

There was silence in the courtyard. The first cricket's chirp could be heard.

"…Oi, Baka-Onna, don't tell me that you go bald too when you're in your fifties," Sadist called out, glancing behind the Baldie towards her. The other courtiers, etc. men seemed to be in a rather disturbed state. Besides the obvious monstrous strength these two possessed, they didn't seem to look much alike ("Ah, wait, their eyes are the same color.").

"Do I _look_ like a man?!"

"Hm. That's what I thought."

Behind him, Taketori no Gintoki spoke up, "And if we're arguing about daughter-father rights here, then I would actually be included since I've been taking care of her since she was born from the bamboo stalk-,"

"You _picked_ me up-aru! And you also threatened to sell me off! Fifty three times-aru! And I don't remember you calling me your daughter, you *bleep*head!"

"That's how you address the man who had to give up his rice to fill your black hole of a stomach?! Having eggs and soy sauce over rice three times a day for 365 days was HELL!"

"You're the one who introduced that meal, Gin-chan! Don't get started!"

This bickering was obviously now heading towards the direction of a regular, everyday family quarrel.

"That's enough of this! I am taking her back, whether you will it or not, young man. Kagura is not someone who can live down here with people like you-,"

"People like us…? Ah… I just hate it when people full of themselves talk down on others." Sadist muttered, smiling cruelly as his fingers touched the hilt of his katana. The light mood from before had completely vanished.

"Is that really something like he should say?" the old bamboo cutter murmured incredulously.

The Sadist stepped forward with his katana and a wakizashi drawn, emanating pure bloodlust. "You see, I prefer to be the one stepping on other people's faces, not the one being stepped on at all times. As the Emperor of this country, it's an absolute given. And if I can't even beat down the father Rabbit, then who'll expect me to ever attain the small piglet Rabbit?"

"So you'll die for the sake of trying to gain what you cannot?" Kamui asked, his smile matching the Emperor's in sadism.

"There is nothing I cannot gain in this world – nothing I cannot cut down, and nothing I cannot reach. Whether I die or not is up to me, not to you bastards. And I am _not_ such a wishy washy, happy-go, easy opponent, _Onii_ -chan."

"Damn it Sadist, Bakamui doesn't like being called Onii-chan by strangers!" Kagura murmured, gritting her teeth as the tension and bloodlust heightened.

Well, this had gone on for long enough. She had to stop them before either one snapped (as usual, it was up to the heroine to let the story resume in a nice flow).

It took only one touch. One touch for her to stop it all.

Her father and brother stared at her, and her Earthly friends and family looked at her as she held his body against her, her curled fist harshly digging into his stomach.

"Baka… Onna…?" the Emperor gasped out, the strength obviously leaving his legs. "What…"

She had to bite her lip from crying this time. "I have to go back-aru. It's not something I can avoid, as I am not of this world. And that's why I declined your offer of marriage last time, Sadist. Not because I didn't like you enough or hate you enough-,"

He coughed out a weak laugh, his fingers fisting around the back of her neck and hair, both of his swords falling to the ground. She sank down to the ground with him in her arms, as it was clear that he couldn't stand anymore.

"I'm not human, Sadist. I can't stay here anymore. My kind… what I am-,"

"I know." He groaned out. "I know all that—and I really don't give a… crap about it… either."

"No, you will." The Baldie said. "We are a race who have long lived, unable to walk under the Sun but hide within the Moon; unable to walk across a foreign land without covering the ground with blood. For you to accept someone like us, and more so someone like our precious-,"

"I don't give a *bleep*as to _what_ you are… all I know and care about is… _who_ she is." Sadist bit out, panicking as his sight was becoming blurry. His fingers snarled in Kagura's long hair, as if he was making a shackle from it, trying to prevent her from leaving him.

And it was true that she didn't want to. She didn't want to, but did she really have a choice? Between her blood-related family going on a huge rampage just because she didn't go back after years of time of leaving her home and her non-blood related but just as important family crying their eyes out… it was plain to see which choice was heavier.

"Goodbye, Sougo."

* * *

When he opened his eyes, the birds were chirping outside, and the rays of the sun were pouring over his face through the bamboo screens. There was a sharp pain in his stomach from where she had punched him—

He jolted, standing right up, remembering everything that happened—but he ended up collapsing back on the bed, his legs no longer having enough energy to hold him up.

"W-what the…" he frowned, then raised his voice to call for the servants.

They came scurrying in, and began to fawn over him overprotectively, treating him as one would a doll or a precious ornament. He tsked, his irritation rising. Where the hell was his katana when he needed it?!

"Oi Zaki!" he shouted, and the said courtier burst in after a moment of silence. "Where is she?"

"Mikado-sama, thank the Heavens that you're awake-,"

"Shut up and tell me—where is that woman?"

"… If you are… referring to Kagura-hime, Mikado-sama…" the courtier looked flustered and pale, unable to continue. That was enough to tell him what he wanted to know.

The Emperor's shoulders slumped as he leaned forward on his knees, going silent. He waved the servants away, his ominous aura telling them as much. Yamazaki was the only one apparently bold enough to stay and speak up, "A-ano, Mikado-sama…"

"What is it." He replied emotionlessly.

"K-Kagura-hime, before she… before she left, she left this for you." The courtier carefully put a small vial of liquid and a letter with it in front of the Emperor before leaving quietly.

The Emperor lifted his red eyes to look at the only keepsake he had of her, unmoving and taciturn. He refused to eat or go anywhere else, turning away all the guests who came to see him for the entirety of the day.

When Hijikata and Yamazaki came to report to him about how Kagura-hime's adoptive parents were soon put to bed sick, and gave him the details of her departure, he only listened quietly. He gave no reaction to anything—acting as if he was mourning _her_ loss in his own way.

The day turned into three, and three days soon turned into a week.

The entire court was in an uproar about how all the state of affairs in the kingdom had stopped, blatantly gossiping about the Kagura-hime who had been escorted back to her home on the Moon. One of these courtiers used the beautifully tragic story of this mysterious woman, renaming her Kaguya, to write a different tale. This tale soon passed down the generations, to be known as Taketori no Monogatari.

However, what no one knew was the fact that this story was not one that had been completed with the heavenly hime's return to her home, leaving those she loved behind in tears.

It had happened on the seventh day since her absence.

The Emperor was lying listlessly on the floor of what remained of Kagura-hime's former mansion, looking up at the Moon through the (blasted) open ceiling.

Taketori no Gintoki and his family had apparently moved from the mansion to go back to their old hut in the bamboo grove in the mountains, saying that this place had left too much for them to bear.

But this was the only place where he felt somewhat at ease—remembering the memories, the only relevant thing he had left of her. He hadn't opened the letter, for fear of reading something melancholic and sentimental. And that wasn't how he wanted to remember her.

No… it was probably more exact to say that he was afraid to read what was inside at all—unsure of how that would affect him. He laughed for some time when he reached this conclusion, surprised at how much he missed her—how much he had actually loved her.

As for the vial of liquid… he faintly remembered how it contained the elixir of immortality or something, but had forgotten to drink it. He only carried it around with him nowadays, almost like a protective charm.

It was made out of porcelain, so he couldn't see what sort of liquid it contained inside. But he saw with a bitter laugh, that it was one of the vials that he had once given to her to hold soy sauce.

He knew that this couldn't continue much longer. He was the Emperor of these lands, and he had a responsibility to rule. He had to forget her to continue normally…

The Sadistic Mikado absentmindedly opened the vial with a pop, and raised it to his lips.

…but to hell with that. Like he'd ever be able to find a toy— ahem—woman as fitting as her.

He downed the liquid in one gulp, and began to cough, gasping on the ground. He clenched his chest as the burning of whatever he drank spread through his mouth and his insides, leaving his mouth in complete agony. The spiciness—spiciness?

"Hahahhaha! You drank it—you drank it-aru!" through that pain, he managed to hear a… nostalgic, familiar laugh. That stupid 'aru' and—

His eyes widened when he saw those vermillion strands in the wind—those deep blue eyes laughing down at him. It was unmistakably her, but she was wearing a different style of clothes—much like her father and brother were wearing…

"Baka-onna…?"

She smiled down at him, her hands on her hips. "Miss me? Well-,"

He didn't give her time to finish her sentence—he was up and wrapped around her, slanting his lips over hers in a firm kiss.

"Mmph-!"

Unfortunately, it didn't last too long, since she started thrashing against him and hitting him with her inhuman strength. But he only continued his mouth to mouth, and seemed satisfied only when he came away with seeing her face as red as blood, and tears forming at her eyes.

She screamed, "YOU *BLEEP*ING SADISTIC BASTARD-!"

He smirked at her as she ran around the room, grabbing her throat and mouth and shouting for water. "Got a taste of your own medicine, piglet?"

She glared at him, tears in her eyes. "Of all the times that you had to drink that, you had to do it now?!"

He raised the vial which had contained the 'elixir of immortality', his own mouth rather red (not from the kiss). "Immortality, my ass. This is Tabasco, isn't it?"

She tsked. "You're the one who introduced it to me in the first place, so it's really a taste of _you_ r own medicine."

"Leaving me with something like this—you were really out for my throat, weren't you, you-,"

"Shut and stop complaining." She snapped, this time being the one to grab him.

Instead of the spicy taste of the Tabasco spreading on either one's tongue and mouth, a sugary sweetness dissipated and unfurled out like a wave.

"… Konpeito…?"

"Heh," she replied, holding out another piece with her tongue, wagging it as if to provoke him.

He raised an eyebrow at her and only said, "Candy got your tongue, piglet."

She punched his stomach lightly. "Be grateful, you snotty brat. I saw you moping around-,"

"And I'm supposed to thank you for coming back? Are you even back? For-," she tsked, grabbed his kimono lapels, then flipped him around 360 degrees in the air before pinning him into the ground. Before he could respond by throwing her a slap, she sat on top of him and slammed a bottle of konpeito into his mouth, smirking.

"Yes to all of your stupid questions, you baka-Mikado," she tapped the quickly emptying bottle with a finger, "And you talk too much at the worst timing. This is where you're supposed to ravage me, saying you missed me and love me-aru."

Spitting the bottle and the wave of konpeito from his mouth, the Sadist muttered, "And is that supposed to be something you saw from another Sunday soap opera?"

She nodded smugly before squeaking when he reached up to grab her hair and pull her down to his face. "If that's so, then you got the position wrong," hoisting his hips up, he flipped around so that he was the one on top. "It's supposed to be _me_ up here."

"Why does this feel like a very familiar situation we've had somewhere in a different universe…" she murmured, silenced in a very sweet (because of the sugar), delicious (in more ways than one) and spicy (quite literally from the Tabasco) way...

A while later, the Moon was stretched out over the two, who lay under its transparent silvery light, and the soft quiet of the night gave way to their conversation.

"Did you fall from the sky like your… bald geezers did?"

"Hm. No, I didn't. I rode the dragons down here along with the little headless chickens."

"… Right. How much Tabasco do you have in your mouth right now?"

Pushing his face which was closing in, she rolled her eyes, "Shut it. I'm fine. I really just stole a ship Bakamui had and made my way back. Though I did raise hell back home."

He chuckled. "Raised hell, hm? And you couldn't have done that back before they tried to take you?"

She raised her eyes to stare up at him seriously. "And you probably know why I did that, though."

"… You have no trust in me." He replied, half joking, wrapping his arms around her to pull her close, and tucked her head under his chin. After a while, he said, "… Yeah. I get it."

"And speaking of, you had no trust in me either, did you? Seeing as how you were on your ass for some time, from what I've seen and heard," Kagura mumbled, snuggling up against the crook of his neck. "Like hell I would stay there when you're down here. Like hell I wouldn't come back."

"And this is coming from the woman who said she couldn't stay here."

"Going back once was inevitable. Even I couldn't do anything. But once I went back, I did what I had to do so I could return here," she hit his chest once. "And here you are, complaining-aru. Baka-Mikado-Sadistic-bastard. Just shut up and say what you need to say."

"…" there was silence, before crickets filled that very awkward silence.

"Oi, I came all the way back here for you and you have nothing else to say to me?" she glared at him, grabbing his cheeks and began to stretch them. "Take responsibility for stealing my purity, you cheap-ass-,"

"Hwight, hwight, enuff a tha', you baka-onna!" he wheezed, grabbing her hands so she'd let go. "But did you think I'd so easily let you do whatever you wanted once you came back?"

"Uh-huh."

"Don't reply so quickly with an affirmative, baka." He sighed, looking into her face. "So, 'marry me' is what you want to hear? If that's all it is, then-,"

"I'll be your wife, if you be my slave." She said, kissing his cheek. "No further arguing, or I'm gonna go back to the Moon."

"You're gonna use that stupid card to control me our entire lives, hm?" he asked, slanting his lips on hers. "Hmph. For a good-for-nothing brat to challenge the Emperor… how cheeky can you get."

"I'm a princess from the Moon, and in terms of sadism, rank and riches, I'm superior to you," she murmured, her cheeks red. "But whatever. We should get married tomorrow, by the way. I've waited long enough."

"Which mouth is saying that… che," he splayed his fingers on her back, nipping at her neck. "But fair enough."

Before either one could resume, however, the room exploded. To be exact, once more-they didn't explode, but the back door to the room had exploded, revealing a shadowy group of rather pissed looking middle-aged men standing there with bazookas, anpan and katanas in their hands.

"Did you think that we'd hand our precious Kagura-hime to you so easily?"

"Uwah, Gin-chan, talk about bad timing." Kagura muttered, but quickly stood.

"Uwah, Danna, honestly, bad timing." Sadist muttered, putting his chin in his hand and propping it on his leg as he looked on lazily. "I'm assuming that damn Zaki told you I was here, hm?"

As if in response, the so called servant appeared behind Hijikata, trembling as he held his precious things, "I-I didn't have a choice, Mikado-sama-! I-they-they had my anpan!"

The Emperor sighed, "So, what is it that you want?"

"Better make it quick, Gin-chan. Sadist was about to jump on me this time, you know."

"What a thing to be saying as a young woman. Did she want to get jumped on? Honestly... why am I getting involved, too..." Hijikata murmured in an irritated tone.

Kagura's eyes furrowed as her arms loosened and fell down at her sides, "Wait, hold on... the Sadist aside, how did you know that I was here-aru?"

The answer to that popped out behind Taketori no Gintoki, waving a cheerful umbrella over his head. "Good evening~."

"Bakamui?! Does that mean Papi's here-," she tensed up, her body adjusting into a battle stance.

Next to her, Sadist grumbled, "Damn it, does this mean we have to go through all that trouble again? You're such a bothersome woman, piglet."

"And you're marrying me tomorrow, you troublesome, baka Mikado."

Folding his umbrella, Kamui came forward with a smile, "No, I came alone. But I do have a message from him: 'You're banned from coming back without that bastard's head', or something of the sort. So-,"

"Papi's... letting me stay...?"

"Well, even if he didn't let you, you'd already gone anyway, right?" her brother replied, his brow arching. "And apparently, I've been assigned to babysit you, so you'll have to deal with having us Yatos here on Earth, Mikado-san~."

Everyone blinked at this last bit. The old bamboo cutter put down his bokuto, and the others around him nearly dropped their weapons, all exclaiming, "WHAT?!"

"It's enough to deal with this woman, and now I get two of you monsters in my kingdom, hm? Talk about the early end of the world, huh."

Kagura frowned, slowly standing in front of her soon-to-be-apparent-husband almost protectively as Kamui's smile grew even wider, "Oh, it'll be war, alright-aru." she whipped open her umbrella and began shooting at her brother.

"Ahh, I've been found out? Kagura, it's unfair if you keep the best toys near you and don't give me any~!"

"Shut it, you! Like hell I'll let you near my Sadist!"

"Hahaha! It doesn't mean I've approved of him, Kagura!"

"You mean after you'd gotten over your siscon tactics, you realized that I'd make a good living toy?" this time, the so called Sadist leapt into the fray with his own katana unsheathed.

"You'll take him over my dead body, you Baka-Aniki!"

"Ahh-stop shooting, stop shooting, Kagura-chan! We're not bulletproo-,"

The sentence was interrupted as someone's bazooka went off, screams arose, and soon smoke was seen coming up from the place, all the way to the Moon.

All that is well ends well.

* * *

 **And that was that. Hehe. Tell me what you all thought^^ I hadn't exactly planned that sort of ending, but... in the original story, the story itself was somewhat melancholic and sad that I wanted something silly and light-hearted to end with. Though I'm not exactly sure what to think of violence ending up being a light-hearted ending, but... heh.**

 **I HAD been working on Little Red Riding Hood and another oneshot at the same time... it depends on which one gets completed first. Ta ta till next time~.**


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